Teenage Wasteland
by Professional Magical Girl
Summary: When Aguri Shiota and her sister went to visit the mountain, they didn't ask to be pulled into this. Time travel. Rated T to be safe, rating may change.
1. Chapter 1

**Special thanks to Chiliblossoms, who helped me with ideas for this story.**

* * *

 _Maybe this wasn't the best idea after all_ , I thought as we climbed the steep path up the mountain. Sure, I'd been to this mountain quite a few times before. Sure, I was always paying attention when we came here. Sure, I downloaded a map of the whole place from my father's phone and sent it to mine when he was distracted. And sure, we had a really good reason to be here.

But really, my sister and I didn't actually know what we were doing here.

I looked behind me. I could see the entire skyline of Kunugigaoka spread out. It was a legendary city, thanks to that little incident twenty-three years ago. And if the pictures were to be believed, a lot has changed. We live thirty minutes from three different malls! The town's population exploded at around the time I was born, though most everyone commutes to Tokyo during the day. And every August, we have the biggest Obon festival in the prefecture-

"Aguri!" My little sister poked me in the ribs. "Why'd you space out? There must be something really interesting over there."

"Huh?" I turned around to meet Hotaru's amber eyes. "Not much. Just lost in thought, I guess." The truth was I had just read a big book on the history of Kunugigaoka and was itching to share what I learned with someone. Maybe my sisters and my parents would listen to me talk about it after dinner tonight. They always did ask me "What did you learn today?"

Twenty minutes later, I was still convinced we were on the right path. Even though some unfamiliar things were popping up. But I had to be sure.

"Do we have an emergency escape plan?" I swatted a gnat that had been buzzing around us for the past half hour.

"We don't need one. This mountain is private property. So unless someone from the extended family decided to come here right now, we won't be discovered." Hotaru smiled sweetly. She was correct, the only 'person' (or what could pass for one) who might have been tracking our location was Ritsu. She's never shown up on my phone before, but maybe copying the map from my father's phone transferred her to my device… And maybe she also read my embarrassing text messages to my crush... Ahh, I couldn't stop thinking about such things!

"I mean, are we technically trespassing if Mom and Dad said we could be here?" I tried to convince myself, quickly checking the map.

"No we aren't, stop being paranoid." Hotaru skipped up the rocks, humming the song from _My Neighbor Totoro_.

"I am not paranoid! And be careful!"

* * *

It all started last night. We were both woken up at 11:36 pm on the dot. I found my sister in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water. I poured myself one too, and we sat staring at the wall for what seemed to be hours. I finally spoke up.

"You know how Mom and Dad were talking about Koro-sensei today?"

"So you were thinking of him too." She sighed, putting her dishes in the sink. In the other room, we could hear our youngest sister Fujiko throwing up, and our parents rushing out of their bedroom to tend to her. It was like this every night for the past month.

"Yeah. You know how they said that they leave out offerings for him? Candies and porno mags and such?"

"Yes." She opened up a package of pudding, and sat down with a spoon. "I wish I didn't know about the porno mags, but we have Uncle Okajima to thank for that."

"Err, yeah. Anyway, I want to do that too." My sister expected to hear that from me, and I know it. And I expected what I heard from her next.

"… So do I."

A very pregnant pause. Then more retching noises and sobbing.

I gulped. "Do you think he'd listen to our requests? Do you think he can-"

"Yes."

So here my sister and I were, on the Koro-sensei Memorial Mountain 12 hours later. Completely on a whim. Well, it wasn't completely on a whim, we had our reasons to be here. In my backpack, I was carrying a big bag of strawberry cheesecake Kit Kats and a note my sister and I wrote to this octopus we never got to meet. I can still remember what it said, which sentences were my idea and which were Hotaru's. Fujiko even added a few words, then crawled back into bed to take another six hour nap.

"Hey sis? What's the time?"

My sister unlocked her phone. _10:23 in the morning. Wednesday, August 17st, 2039._

I was hoping we could make it home by the time Mom and Dad got home with our younger sister. They took her to the Takebayashi General Hospital, all the way in central Tokyo. They trusted a doctor there most of all, one of our many uncles. If we couldn't make it home by then, we would at least stop by the store and buy a bag of Fujiko's favorite candy. We were told to clean the house, but… Priorities.

Before we ventured further, I sent a loving text to Fuji-san.

 _I'll pray to Koro-sensei for your health._

She immediately responded with a thumbs up.

"How much further to the top?" Hotaru asked me once we were in a thick bush, I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was scratching the bug bites she probably got due to the 37 degree Celsius weather.

I consulted the map on my phone. "Half a kilometer."

We climbed up a tree to get to the next ledge. We knew there was an easy path right near us, but we could find it even with the map. My sister was slouched over on me, catching her breath.

"I think we should have waited for the weekend and asked Mom and Dad to take us." Hotaru confided in me.

"Who knows what could happen in the next three days?" If it were anyone but Hotaru saying that, I think I would have snapped. "I think this counts as an emergency. And besides, we've navigated around Tokyo on our own before. We'll be fine."

My sister reluctantly nodded, and we marched forward.

And not even five minutes after I said that, we came to a giant pine tree that overshadowed a creepy cave.

 _Now_ we were in unfamiliar territory. Neither of us had even seen this before.

I walked towards the cave. Casually, as if I were walking to school. A raven flew over my head. Huh. I didn't even know we had those on the mountain. Hotaru followed closely behind, nervously grabbing my arm.

She began to hyperventilate. "Aguri? I'm having some serious doubts about this."

I paused, tapping the dirt off the soles of my shoes. My sister was the bubbly one between the hours of 8 in the morning to 10 at night (not a minute after 10 though; that was sleepy time). There was only thirteen months between us, but one could think it was thirteen years with the way she was acts within ten feet of a dessert shop. For her to be the voice of reason, I must be going something monumentally stupid.

"I'm just taking a look." I explained. After all, this whole adventure was my idea... But I immediately realized I _really_ didn't want to inspect this creepy tunnel, not even in broad daylight. But something told me too. Maybe it was the ghost of Koro-sensei?

"Y'know you really shouldn't have worn white. That dress was meant for the next reunion." Hotaru slapped a mosquito.

"I guess I'm not exactly known for planning ahead." I shrugged, and shined my phone's flashlight down the cave. "That was Koro-sensei's specialty, they say."

Upon closer inspection, it was clear that this was less of a tunnel and more of a hole in the ground. It dipped down at about a 45 degree angle, and was full of jagged stalagmites. Most curious of all, a weird smile was engraved on the side of the cave. It had exactly eight big teeth, beady little eyes, and no nose. I immediately knew who it was. I put my phone away, as my palms were now too sweaty to handle it.

Under normal circumstances, seeing photos or drawings of this octopus, the one who my parents and aunts and uncles owe so much to, the same one I was going to humbly ask for assistance from, would comfort me. When I was an infant my mother knitted me a plush of him. He was still sitting on my dresser, I had ruffled his head for luck before I left. But it was not normal circumstances right now. This had bad news written all over it.

"I'm not going in there." I breathed as reality hit me like a freight train. I was a connoisseur of horror movies, my mother and I would watch them, especially the ones she'd starred in as a child. I knew the tropes. Teenage girl dressed in white: I'd probably see all my friends killed by whatever the hell it is that lives in my mirror, then be forced to make a pact with some celestial being to confront it and emerge from the cave at 4 am dripping with blood. Nope. Pioneers never say die, but they do have a very high mortality rate.

"Yeah, I'm not either. This is a terrible idea. Let's just go home and talk to-" Hotaru began to walk away, but she suddenly tumbled back, into the cave. She didn't even let out a scream, her eyes just revealed an expression of pure panic and terror.

"Hotaru!" I chased her in, and found my arm grabbed by some… It felt like a hand? But I could just feel the negative energy coming from it. Whatever it was, it wanted my sister and I in this cave that lead to God-knows-where. I knew it wasn't Koro-sensei.

I flailed around. Once I finally made contact with something fleshy, I knew it was Hotaru's leg and pulled on it, yanking my sister closer to me and clutching onto her for dear life.

It was then that she began to scream. I began to scream too, though I wasn't sure if anyone else could hear it. Then, we were overcome by blackness.

* * *

 _Thud._

I was woken by my sister poking me in the face. "Aguri, you better take a look at this."

"Wha…" My bones felt stiff, and like they were made of iron.

The sunlight guided us out of the cave. I stretched, grabbing a nearby stalagmite for balance. My bones cracked; I was too young for that!

What I gazed upon blew my mind. Kids our age, in those gray uniforms we had seen before, walking up the mountain. I could only see them from a distance but they looked very unhappy. This mountain hadn't been used by the school for twenty-three years. There should be no students here.

Quickly, I unlocked my phone.

 _Friday, April 3rd 2015_.

"So..." Hotaru shuddered as she showed me that her phone had the same display.

"So... What do we do now?"

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **1\. If you follow me as an author, I'm currently writing a sequel to Great Teacher Nagisa. I expect to publish the first chapter in late March or early April.**

 **2\. This was partially inspired by Fallen Demonic Angel's** ** _Experiencing the Past_** **, but it's going to have a slight _twist_. *Wink*  
**

 **3\. Many of the OC's I will feature here will be the children of E Class. Prepare thy heart.  
**

 **4\. Aguri and Hotaru praying and making offerings to Koro-sensei and believing that he can heal their sister may not seem to make sense if you're a Westerner reading this, but in Shintoism (the folk religion of Japan) it's customary to pray to ancestors and dead loved ones for their intercession.**

 **5\. Please tell me what you think in the reviews. I'm not sure I like how it came out (plus I've not been feeling myself as of the past few days), so if it's not good I'll rewrite it.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So… First thing's first: Sorry I left this fic untouched for over a month. It was quite the series of events that got in the way of me planning out the next chapter. First I had midterms, then I went to Tokyo, then I got extremely ill with what I thought was whooping cough but apparently was not. Then… Writer's block. But I intend to post new chapters of this fic at least once every two-ish weeks to make up for it.**

 **I have made a post on my tumblr listing all of my OC's for this fic. The link to it is on my profile, unless ffn decided to remove it. If it's not there, check again in a few hours. The timeline of this story will start getting funky soon. Basically, since all of the E Class babies are of different ages, they are all traveling from different points in time, so that they will all be 13-15 during the time of the story. I will try to make it clear where they are coming from. I am also open to suggestions for what kind of details you'd like to see in this story. Particularly, I'd like some advice on what Aguri and Hotaru's relationship should be like. I don't have a sister, so I can't really relate. Please leave your thoughts in the reviews.  
**

 **Thank you to MonkDdrgn (If I type your name with the full stop FFN thinks I'm trying to post a link), darkprincess238, Guest, The RoseShadow21, Vin, and EpicMS for the lovely reviews.**

* * *

"So…" I slouched back down in the cave, resting against the walls. "What _do_ we do…"

"I'm asking you. You're the oldest." Hotaru sat next to me.

"Not by much. Let's go back into the cave, and see if there's … something." I was grasping at straws. But it had to be worth a shot, right?

No dice. Hotaru tried walking into the back of the cave and hit it with a _thud_. I felt around, searched with my phone's light, and found nothing but a solid wall. Even the octopus drawing was gone now.

"What now?"

I plopped down next to her. "I think we traveled in time."

"You _think_?"

"I don't know what other explanation there is. Let's go." I picked up my bag and helped my sister up.

"Go and do what?"

"We don't have many options but to talk to people on the mountain."

* * *

The landscape looked different. That fed into my time travel theory that I still didn't want to believe. Some of the trees that stood tall and proud when we were last here with our parents were mere saplings now. And no crows to be found. What was with that?

We cornered the first person we saw. A tall girl, around my age with dark hair and a sullen expression. She looked distressed.

"Hey!" Hotaru beamed.

"Hey yourself." She shrugged and stepped around us.

Dammit, she was getting away. I had to talk to her!

"Uhhh, do you know where we are!?" I pursued her. I knew I'd seen her somewhere before.

She gave me a quizzical look. "You're on the mountain of E-as-in-End Class."

Something struck me about this girl. I had _definitely_ seen her somewhere before, no doubt. She looked a bit like Minami, and like my 'aunt'-

"Sorry, but I'm going to be late for class," The girl sidestepped my sister and walked on. She was followed by three bug guys who also looked very familiar

"Uhh, Onee-chan?" Hotaru backed into me. Dammit, she only ever called me that when she wanted something, or was scared shitless.

"Yes?" I gulped.

"Wasn't 2016 the year our parents graduated E Class?"

I dropped the phone I was holding. "It was."

"Meaning the students here now, in April of 2015…"

"Are our 'family'." I finished. But there was no time to be enthralled with that now. "Huh. No wonder they all looked so familiar. Well, I guess we can take the opportunity to learn embarrassing secrets about our aunts and uncles, eh?"

"How are you so flippant about this?" She picked up my cell phone.

"Because now we get to meet Koro-sensei in person," I dusted it off. "He _has_ to listen to us now. And aren't there things you want answers to?"

"Yeah, I guess. But will he be able to grant our requests while he's still… Human?"

"But he isn't human. Not now."

"Okay, Aguri." Hotaru rolled her eyes. "I meant _mortal_. Flesh. Not a poof of stardust."

"Koro-sensei can do anything. Now let's find a place to stay."

My sister and I settled on an abandoned shack in the woods. We had never seen this before. It must have been destroyed at some point between the start of the assassination classroom and our visits here.

It was musty and it was sure to get cold later that night. No wifi, no outlets, terrible cell phone service. The lights were dim and flickered. But at least we weren't out in the elements. Heh. If there's one thing I learned in my own junior high days, it's that you're totally screwed when you start to accept 'it could have been worse' as good news.

I clapped my hands together twice. "Koro-sensei-"

Hotaru turned around to look at me, then quickly joined in with my prayer.

"Koro-sensei," I said again, clearing my throat. "If you can hear us right now, please cure our sister. Wherever in space and time she is, and whatever she has, please help her get better."

We both bowed, then sat on the floor.

"So," Hotaru huffed as she feel over out of exhaustion. Her blue hair fluttered. "… Now what?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I tucked my feet under myself.

"What?" Hotaru pulled the thorns out of her shirt. We had hid in the bushes to avoid being seen by any of our aunts and uncles. "I'm kind of in a daze considering everything we've been going through, so just spell it out for me."

"Well, we have to enroll at this school, don't we?"

* * *

Seven a.m. the next morning. Hotaru and I stood right in front of the school. I could hear her breathing. It was shallow and rapid, borderlining on hyperventilation.

"Calm down." I felt her forehead for a fever.

"We're gonna die."

"We aren't gonna die." We were just waiting for the one of the administrators to invite us into the building. We had called them the night before, pretending to be the parents of twin girls who wanted to enroll in Kunugigaoka Junior High. Played up a sob story about how we weren't getting challenged enough at public school and we were such great students, the whole nine yards. "We're just gonna get thrown into E Class. You remember the stories, it's not gonna be that bad-"

The door swung open, revealing one Principal Gakuho Asano.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Hotaru shot me an _'I told you so'_ look. All the stories I'd heard about this guy could not prepare me for how deeply _unsettling_ he was. I felt like I was a bug under a magnifying glass, and he was the scientist.

"Hello." He smiled.

A pause. I knew I had to put on an act. What would my mother do in this situation? "Hello. My sister and I want to enroll here." A bow. "We're grateful for your generosity."

Hotaru awkwardly bowed. "Y-yeah."

The principal grinned. It sent shivers down my spine, but I couldn't let him know that. He held the door open. "Four doors down, to the left. You'll find the library. Your exams are waiting there. Good luck."

Wondering if the last part was sarcastic, we stepped foot in the building. The school that was, at this time, so famous for its wonderful academics. But we only cared about one thing.

"Hello." The librarian greeted us.

We handed her the paperwork. It was all forged, almost every detail. It's amazing what you can get done at a public library with a couple of hours of free time. If all went according to plan, Aguri and Hotaru Fujihara would enroll in E Class by the end of next week.

"I need the application fee." The librarian held her hand out. Begrudgingly, I handed her the 10,000 yen to cover both of us. Crap, that was all I had on me. We would have to either get scholarships or jobs.

My sister and I sat down on opposite sides of the library, so that the proctor wouldn't think we could be cheating. I gave her a smile and mouthed the words _give 'em hell_.

Inhale. Exhale. We always did well in school, we would be able to tackle this no problem, right? Even if we had the summer break to rot our brains. We had to pass this exam, our future depended on it. _Once I put my mind to something, I just keep on rolling._ I said a prayer to my aunt, who was a teacher during her life. _Aguri-sensei, please show us guidance._

"Pick up your pencil, class. The test will begin when the bell rings."

I watched the clock. One, two, three, c _hime._

* * *

Phase one of the plan was a success. Emails arrived in our inboxes on Sunday morning.

 _Welcome to Kunugigaoka Junior High,_

 _Your class placement is 3-B. Please begin attending classes on Monday, April 6th._

 _Congratulations,_

 _Gakuho Asano, Principal_

"Did you get the same message, Hotaru-chan?" I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I hated living in this shack. Was there a homeless shelter in Kunugigaoka at this time?

"Yeah, but I'm in Class 3-C." She sat up. "And, my phone just died. C'mon, let's go find a place with an outlet."

Once again, we were at the town's public library. I scoured through every website that came to mind, looking for scholarships for myself and Hotaru. The first payment for Kunugigaoka was due in June.

"I can't find any that are Kunugigaoka-specific, I'll have to broaden my search…" I monologued to myself.

Hotaru sat at the computer next to me, writing on scrap paper. She had the school's website pulled up on the monitor. "I've come up with these plans for getting into E Class." She whispered in my ear and pushed the paper towards me.

Knowing what to expect, I rolled my eyes the moment my gaze landed on the paper.

 _1\. Make a giant pudding laced with laxatives and gift it to A Class._

 _2\. Set loose three pigs in the school, with capes that say 1, 2, and 4._

 _3\. Break into the school and put the principal's awards in the janitor's closet as a 'prank', but really to remind him he ain't shit. Stare into the security cameras as you do so._

"Umm, what?" Sweatdrop.

"You don't like them?" Hotaru seemed offended.

"No. The first would seem too weird. Why would a pair of new students gift anything to A Class?"

"Who cares, so long as it gets us demoted." Her stomach growled loudly.

"But if the Principal knows that's what we want, he might be onto us. He might intercept A Class from receiving the gift _because_ he'd be suspicious." I crossed my legs. "And the second one's been done to death."

"I admit, I got the idea from what Liam Carmichael said his middle school's graduating class last year did as a prank." Hotaru slouched down on the desk. "I'm so hungry."

"But the third one might work."

"Huh?" Hotaru dropped the pencil she was balancing on her head.

"Yeah. If we break in later tonight, when the doors will still be locked. That way we can also get busted for breaking and entering."

"What if the school decides to call the cops on us?"

"They won't. According to what Uncle Karma told us, they didn't even want the police involved when he hospitalized a freaking star student. The principal is power-hungry. He doesn't want anyone with more authority than him around."

"Okay." Another stomach growl, that one might have been my own. "So we should get started tonight?"

"Yeah. But first, let's go back to the mountain, I saw some nuts and berries in the trees. Oh, and one other thing," I handed her a copy of the page I just printed out. "Apply for this scholarship. I'm applying too. It'll cover our whole year at Kunugigaoka, and then some. And we get it in cash."

"Sounds perfect."

* * *

"What is the meaning of all of this!?"

The principal was seething with anger in front of us, in his office. The awards, having been fished out of the janitor's closet, were off to the side. _Yes, yes, yes,_ this was the exact reaction we wanted. But we couldn't let him know that.

Principal Asano stared with sadness at his beloved trophies, recognitions he received for being the very best. And we stomped all over that by placing them right next to the mop that the janitor used to wipe up vomit.

"Well… To be fair, we didn't know the security cameras were real." Yes, dig yourself even deeper into that grave, Aguri Shiota.

"That's not the point!" He clutched his temples. A few seconds of an expression of rage, then all calm. "Well, since you seem determined to lower all kinds of bars today, I'm overjoyed to inform you that this is not the shortest amount of time it's taken to demote someone to E Class."

He got out of his seat and walked towards me. I wasn't intimidated this time, I had him right where I wanted him now. "You'll meet the girl who has you beat at your new home- E Class." He delivered it with a wicked smile.

"This is such bullshit!" Crocodile tears poured forth from my sister's eyes. "You're basically putting us in prison for a little prank!"

"Maybe it'll teach you a lesson." He handed us slips of paper that I didn't even notice he had printed out.

"Those are your walking papers. Hang around the library, you have… orientation later. But as of tomorrow, you will both be in Class 3-E, the special placement class."

My sister and I walked out the door and to the library, heads hanging low in shame. But once we knew we were out of sight of the principal, we high-fived.

* * *

And with that, phase two of the plan was, similarly, a resounding success.

Hotaru and I stood at the front of the assassination classroom, bright and early on a Tuesday morning. After submitting our scholarship applications, we had sat through that awful lecture yesterday about how this was a top secret mission that no one could know about. Yes, that was true. If the world knew about Koro-sensei, they wouldn't understand. But we got the privilege of actually getting to _know_ this octopus we had heard so much about. I was so giddy I couldn't hide it!

"Hello," I bowed, and my sister mimicked my example. "I'm Aguri Fujihara and this is my twin sister Hotaru. We're excited to join your class!"

I looked around at my 'family'. I expected most of the reactions I got. Our father took notes. Hazama (I think that's what her unmarried name was?) cast us one glance and buried her nose in her book. Kataoka and Isogai immediately offered to show us around during lunchtime. And Uncle Karma apparently wasn't in school that day. He must have still been suspended or decided to skip.

All pretty predictable. I actually knew these people very well, even they weren't aware of it.

Expect… I failed to take one very important detail into account.

The pupils of my mother's eyes shrank dramatically. She played with her hair and nervously stared out the window, casting the occasional shy glance at me. And Koro-sensei stood frozen for a moment.

Oh, dammit. We should have given fake first names! All they were thinking about right now was my aunt. Crap. There was no way to come back from this. My heart was pounding the whole morning, so much that I wasn't even phased by all the rubber bullets that flew at Koro-sensei. I didn't want to join the frenzy, but I did throw one anti-sensei knife just so I wouldn't appear too suspicious.

At lunchtime, we received many visitors to our desks. Everyone introduced themselves, which was good because I only knew a few of them by their married names.

"You're twins?" Maehara pulled up a chair next to me.

"Yeah." I lied.

"You don't look like twins." Okano cleaned out her gun right in front of us.

"We're… fraternal twins." Hotaru quickly came up with that excuse.

"Never thought I'd meet a girl with blue hair." Maehara put his hand on my sister's shoulder. He removed it when Okano glared at him.

"Nonsense! You've known Nagisa for years!" A pretty blonde piped up from the corner.

"Hey!"

"Don't be that person, Nakamura!" Kataoka scolded her.

I only met 'Nakamura' a few times because of her location for the duration of my life, but I had the feeling getting to know her was going to be an interesting journey.

"Hello, Fujihara." My father bowed to me. I didn't even notice him there.

How should I react? It felt like I hadn't seen my father in an eternity. I expected that the next time I saw him he'd scold me for wandering off to the mountain. But I was being greeted with a warm and friendly introduction. Yet he thought he was talking to a stranger. My dear father… I was getting an opportunity to know him on a different level.

"Hello, Shiota." I beamed. This was an alien feeling. He wasn't Shiota, _I_ was Shiota. _He_ was Dad.

"Uh, call me Nagisa." He chuckled.

I glanced subtly at Hotaru, giving her the ' _you better not muck this up'_ look. She nodded.

"May I call you Nagisa too?"

"Sure. How do I differentiate between you two?" My father scratched his cheek.

"Call me Hotaru-san."

Jealously welled up in my heart. He should call me by my first name too! That's the way it always was. But if I asked anyone to call me Aguri, it would awaken bad memories for Mom and Koro-sensei. So I kept my mouth shut.

Our mother approached us. "Hey, Fujihara, Hotaru."

I had never witnessed my mother with this expression before. It was like unease colliding with affection, though those two things would normally be contradictory. And she was trying to disguise it all under the veil of friendliness. Did she sense the connection between us? Or was this just because of my name?

"Hello. Kayano-san, was it?"

"It was." She giggled. My mother with green hair… What a strange sight.

"You two look alike!" Kurahashi (though I was not used to calling her that) was already braiding my hair.

"Uh, we must be related." I spat out the truth, but I had to make it more believable. "Somewhere very far back. Like, distant cousins or something."

"We must be!" My mom smiled. But I knew my mom very well, and she seemed nervous.

"Where is your lunch?" Hara sat down in the empty desk next to Hotaru.

"Uh…"

"We forgot it them at home." I lied.

"Would you like some of mine?" She held out a big bento of rice and karaage.

"That's kind of you, but I don't have a dish to put it in."

"Class," Karasuma stood at the front of the room, tapping his foot impatiently. "You're overwhelming the new students. Give them space to breathe."

"Really Mr. Karasuma, it's fine-"

 _Whoosh._ And our favorite octopus was right in front of us, holding a bowl of pad thai in his hand. "Hello class!" He was practically glowing. He stopped to look at the room, probably taking account that all of his students were still there, but his gaze lingered on me for a bit longer.

"And it looks like no one is cutting the rest of classes today! So finish up lunch, because you have a pop quiz on astronomy in ten minutes!"

"Is it really a pop quiz if you announce it in advance!?" The class roared.

* * *

The bell hang rung on the main campus, signaling that the day was over. Up on the mountain, we could only hear echoes of it. I didn't even notice it until Yada pointed it out.

Everyone began packing up at the same time. Koro-sensei's face was still purple with an 'x' on it from when Hotaru said that the last king of France had abdicated.

I caught Hotaru's eyes. And I knew she understood too. Now was our chance. Our chance to talk to the one and only Koro-sensei.

We waited until the room was completely vacant except for the three of us. Even Karasuma had left. The sunlight leaked in the windows, casting orange on the classroom.

I stood up. "K-Koro-sensei?" I squeaked. I had never addressed him directly.

The giant octopus turned away from the shoe he was polishing (He didn't even wear those). "Yes, Fujihara?"

I took a deep breath.


	3. Chapter 3

**I have literally written oneshots shorter than this chapter. And it was over the course of ~2 days. I guess I was just really excited to introduce more 3-E babies. Thank you all and please review.**

 **Responses to specific reviews:**

 **Zane Alias: Maybe that's the case in some schools. In my classes it was only called a pop quiz if it was sprung on you with no chance for preparation. It may be a regional thing.**

 **Darkprincess238: Thanks for the praise. I find Asano Sr to be a very difficult character to write about (as well as his son). As for your question about Karmanami, you'll learn that soon. ;)**

 **TheRoseShadow21: Thanks for the suggestion, I'll consider it. I have 2 (soon to be 3) other AU's that involve 3-E second genners (Great Teacher Nagisa, Hello Shooting Star, and the coming sequel to Aftershocks), and there's quite a bit of overlap between them. Some headcanons I just can't not picture, like Nakamura moving to America, and Nagisa and Kayano having a bunch of daughters. Y'know?**

* * *

"Koro-sensei…" Inhale. "You can do anything, right?" Exhale.

Koro-sensei used his tentacles to scratch his head. "What do you mean, Aguri- I mean, Fujihara-san."

"Could you help us?" I blurted out, ignoring that little slip-up.

"Absolutely! That's what teachers do." The lovable yellow octopus put aside the shoe he was shining. In the blink of an eye, he had stacks upon stacks of books in his tentacles. "What subject is it in? I have math, chemistry, bio, or maybe you want to start preparing for your high school entrance exams-"

"Actually, it's none of that." I pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. "You have a lot of really awesome abilities, right?"

"Yeah, only you can fly at Mach 20!" My sister chimed in.

"Well, sure I do." He was blushing slightly. I wished I could take a picture of this moment.

"So, if one of us were to have a health problem, you could cure us, right?" I didn't know if I said it or my sister did.

And it happened. Koro-sensei froze. And he had that stare again. His face may not move much, but it was obvious he was in abject terror. Oops. I should have known better than to bring up healing. But what other way was there to phrase it?

"Look, girls-" Koro-sensei's tentacles fell to the ground, as if he were a deflated balloon.

"I just mean, hypothetically, you could do it, right?"

"I could try." He finally responded. "But trying and doing are two different things."

"But, you're-"

"An octopus with amazing powers, yes." Koro-sensei plucked flowers from outside the windowsill. "But I'm mortal. I've made mistakes that I deeply regret. And I can't let messing up with what you're requesting be another one of them. I've only read every medical textbook in Japan 1,053 times…"

In spite of the emotionally charged moment, my sister and I wore the trademark 'are you kidding me' face we inherited from our father.

"I've been studying how to protect my students. But I'm not a doctor. I'll do my best for you, but this is above my paygrade." Koro-sensei was somber. Something that in our single day in this class, we hadn't seen. Something we didn't picture him capable of, growing up seeing all of those pictures.

"Koro-sensei, Aguri and I are begging you-" Hotaru interrupted him.

"Aguri-" It looked like he was on the verge of tears. "I appreciate that you trust me to this extent but I just can't help you at this time. Go to a clinic if it's an emergency."

I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding in. I didn't want any more words, I gave my sister that look and we left the building.

"I'm sorry, Aguri." Koro-sensei's words were whispered, but I could hear them. Because I felt his pain, and I knew what he was thinking. Also because the acoustics in the building were terrible.

"What will we do now?" My little sister sighed as she hugged me, something I totally anticipated. "We _jumped back in time._ We can't give up on Fujiko."

You're right. We're not giving up. He said he couldn't help us a _t this time_. We know he eventually developed those healing powers. So we're just going to have to wait around for that."

* * *

 _September 5th, 2043._

The fourteen-year old girl opened her eyes. She yawned, using her pink-nailed fingers to cover her mouth. "How long was I out?"

"Long enough." Her sixteen-year old brother chimed in, standing six feet away at the charcoal grill.

Midori Chiba smoothed out her long flowing skirt, wondering if that meant that that he had pulled a prank on her, written 'I'm dumb' on her face or something. But he hadn't done that in years. "Where are the folks?"

"Went to buy groceries." The black-haired boy started the grill. "You want one burger or two?"

Midori realized that she was on a swing in her backyard. She had sat down to rest her feet this afternoon, but she must have been more tired than she thought. She stretched. She ran her fingers through her long orange hair to detangle any knots. "One." She let out another yawn. "No wait, I want a hot dog instead."

"You can text Dad for that. He hasn't told you 'no' since you asked to be the Empress of Known Universe when you were seven."

"Tsk. Well excuse me for trying to eat less red meat. I'm just looking out for my health."

"Do you even know what hot dogs are made of?" Satoru threw cheese on top of the three patties he had on the grill.

"No, and I don't want to."

Midori pulled out her phone and began scrolling through every social media app she had. For some reason, a lot of her 'cousins', the ones she saw about once a year, were active today. Chitose Mizushima's selfies were flawless, as always. Midori wished she could be that beautiful, but she'd never say that out loud. Tadaharu Konoda's new dream was to move to America and become an NFL star. And what was with Kintaro Sugino's weird, cryptic status updates, like 'I am the one who knocks'? Sigh, boys.

"Hey Satoru?" She didn't even look up from her phone.

"Yeah-huh?"

"When's the next reunion with the extended family?"

Satoru squinted his eyes for a second. He always did that when he was deep in thought. "We usually have them in March, but I think I heard Mom and Dad talk about getting together sometime in November." He flipped a burger.

"Why are you cooking?" Midori laid back down on the swing. The weather was nice. Might as well be comfortable.

"What is this, twenty questions?" Satoru raised an eyebrow at her. "I just felt like doing something nice for the family."

"But you've never made anything more complex than toast before." The swing rocked back and forth. "So this is going to be a culinary disaster."

"Hey, remember the time you tried to make mac and cheese and forgot to boil the pasta?"

"Shut up."

"Or when you made fried chicken and burned part of the kitchen down. Not _that_ was a culinary disaster. Now text dad. I can't fix your hot dog problem. Also ask him to pick up milk."

After texting her father about her need for hot dogs, something new occurred to her.

"Wait, since when did we have a grill?"

Satoru blinked, then dropped the spatula he was holding. The sizzle of the grill was all that was audible for a few seconds. Midori sat back up. Then crows screeched in the distance.

A voice spoke. Neither could guess whom it was or from where it was coming. But it pierced through their souls. There was no shutting it out.

 _"Why does it matter? None of this is real anyway."_

When Midori woke up, she was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Satoru was passed out, facing an unfamiliar floor.

* * *

 _April 24, 2044._

"Seriously dude? 'I am the one who knocks'? What does that even mean?" Thirteen year-old Nobuhiko Sugino collapsed in a fit of giggles, hugging a couch pillow and rolling around on the floor.

"I dunno. It's artsy. Figure it out." His fifteen year-old brother did the standard anime elbows up pose, leaning back on the couch as he hid his phone in between the cushions in shame. It was a silly status update, sure, but it came to him when he woke up this morning, dazed with the memory of last night's weird dream- those were the words on the girl's lips. His dream girl. She looked a lot like Fujiko Shiota. And he couldn't help but feel like he'd said the phrase before.

Nobuhiko was up on the couch next to him within moments. "Hey Kintaro?"

"Yes?"

"How many days has it been raining now?"

Kintaro looked out the window. The flowers in the garden were drenched. The grass was so full of mud that it was brown and only flecks of green peeked out. The sky was deep gray, in spite of it being noontime. "Five days, I think?"

"Well, you know what they say about April showers." The younger teen shrugged.

"They bring May flowers!" Their seven year-old half-brother tumbled into the room, dragging a plush Flareon. He placed the Pokémon on Kintaro's lap, as if looking for approval.

Kintaro chuckled. "Yes," He placed his palm on the top of the boy's head, smiling at the feeling of his soft hair. "But not when there's so much of it that the flowers drown."

"Big bro, can you get my toy tractor out of the basement?" Minoru gave them puppy dog eyes.

"Can't you get it? I don't know where it is."

"I can't reach the light switch." The young boy sat on the ground, tired out from running around the house.

Kintaro and Nobuhiko's step mother called from the kitchen.

"Boys? I'm making a homemade pizza for lunch. Do you want any?"

"Yes!" The boys said in unison.

"It'll be ready in thirty minutes."

Minoru got up and toddled into the kitchen. "Gonna help Mom with the pizza."

"Okay. I'll go look for that tractor." Kintaro got up, placing the Flareon on the far couch cushion. "You're helping me, Nobuhiko."

"Huh? Why? I'm afraid of the dark."

"Because the basement is big and we have thirty minutes to kill." He was already at the door.

"Fine. But you're turning on the light first." Nobuhiko got up.

Kintaro sighed, flipping the light switch.

The basement wasn't completely illuminated. It was only one lonely light that swayed when the door opened and the stairs descended.

"I have no clue where that tractor is. So how about you take that side," The black-haired boy pointed towards the south end of the basement. "And I'll handle here."

"Taking the creepy end, bro? I swear, if this was a horror movie, you'd die first." His brown-haired brother opened a cardboard box and examined the contents. Nothing but old clothes of theirs that were getting donated.

"Don't say that, it's upsetting." Kintaro shuddered. He didn't like this basement either, but what kind of example would he be setting for his brothers if he were to refuse to go down here? There was no real reason to be scared. It was just a basement. Nothing weird here at all, right?

Kintaro heard a slither. He froze, dropping the box full of packing peanuts and scattering them all over the floor. He frantically picked them up and threw them back into the box.

"What's got you so freaked out?"

"I don't know, let's get the tractor and get the fuck out of here." Dread was creeping up his spine. Something was wrong here. He couldn't place his finger on it, but Something Bad was here.

"Really, calm down." Nobuhiko put aside the mess of old rags (used for cleaning the floor). Really, Kintaro was never this way about the basement. "See? Here's the tractor." He unraveled a six inch toy tractor from their dad's junior high baseball uniform (he was so attached to that thing).

"Good! Now up those stairs!" Dread was no longer creeping. It was now the primary driving force in Kintaro Sugino's existence. He swore that the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. The pitter-patter of the rain could no longer be heard, instead it was a series of caws. It was like the birds that produced those sounds were right by his ears.

The light switched off. Neither of the brothers knew what hit them. But when their eyes finally adjusted to the dark, it was clear that they weren't at home anymore.

* * *

 _March 4th, 2047._

"Bastard." Madoka Akabane locked her phone and placed it on the nightstand. Really, she had to resist the urge to throw it.

It wasn't common for such a sweet, kind girl to use such language, but when you stalk your biological father's posts on various social media platforms and see the gifts he got _new_ kids for their birthdays, it's sort of the only reasonable response. A giant plush Flareon for her younger half-sister, and a toy tractor for her other half-brother (the one she didn't know). She was fifteen and she would still kill for a plush Pokémon to use as a pillow.

For certain, Tetsuya (she would never call him Dad) would show up one day, say hi, and shove and envelope with 40,000 yen into her hands before vanishing into the night. Maybe she'd buy the desired plush with some of that. And probably something for Hikaru, too.

But it was no use to think of such thoughts. Not when there was a lab report that wasn't going to do itself.

"Madoka?" Her bedroom door (draped with pink and purple lace and a photo of her favorite K-pop idol) opened.

"Oh, hi Dad." The frown was wiped off of her face as the man she considered her father presented himself in the doorway.

"Hi sweetie. Look at what came in the mail today." The red-haired man held up a piece of off-white paper.

 _To the parents of Madoka Akabane,_

 _Congratulations! Your child has placed in the top ten in Saitayama Junior High's graduating class of 2047!_

 _She is eligible to receive an award._

Karma Akabane, now a successful civil servant, patted his step-daughter's head. "Mom and I are so proud of you."

"Thanks. I hope this final lab report doesn't ruin my ranking." Her pencil's tip broke as she put it to the paper. She always thought it was best to write out the important parts before typing a report.

"I'm glad you have drive. Don't be like I was at your age." He laughed.

"I know, I've heard the stories plenty of times." Madoka reached for another pencil.

"Do you want some tea? We're making some right now, it's a special recipe."

"Sure." Madoka now reached for a hairbrush. She would hop in the shower after this damn report was done.

"Okay. One of us will bring it in in a few." Her adopted father left the room, leaving the door ever-so-slightly ajar.

Madoka focused on brushing her hair. She was trying to grow it out, to no avail. And she wished she'd inherited her mother's violet eyes. But they were a boring black. And if she kept going in this direction, she'd need the same glasses as her Mom. Everything was blurry in the corners of her vision.

 _Focus, Madoka! You're the daughter of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist! A lab report on the mating habits of lobsters should be nothing!_

Madoka's focus was interrupted once again when someone didn't even bother to knock and just walked in.

"Onee-chan, I've got your tea." Her younger half-brother was holding two cups of steaming hot tea.

"Ahh. Thank you, Hikaru." The tea was a murky brown color, and had a slight cinnamon smell to it.

"Can I stay in here? Or are you busy?"

"I was just taking a break." Madoka went with a half-truth. "Come keep me company."

"Sweet." Hikaru sat on her pink fuzzy rug.

"How did the audition go?" Madoka buried her notes under her Japanese-English dictionary. It wasn't due until Friday. And why do today what you can put off 'til Wednesday?

"I have callbacks tomorrow." He propped himself up against his sister's giant plush Rilakkuma. "I hope I get the role of Genji."

"Well, good luck." Madoka decided to check her Line to see if any of her friends tried to contact her. Certain enough, Sayaka Kanou wanted to know if she was available to see a movie this weekend.

"Don't say that! You say 'break a leg'." Hikaru blew on the tea, trying to cool it.

"Okay then. Break a leg or whatever." Madoka took a look at her own tea. "But not literally."

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying their tea. It was aromatic and had a subtle aftertaste. Love Live season 51 was on Madoka's television in the background, not that either of them was paying much attention to it.

It hit Madoka like a freight train. It was the worst cramps she had ever felt in her life. They were everywhere, in every part of her body, from her scalp to the tips of her toes. She promptly fell out of her swivel chair, spilling the tea on the hardwood floor.

"Uhh, Hikaru?" It felt like all the blood was leaving Madoka's brain, and that she was about to spill her guts all over the floor. "Does this tea taste okay to you?"

Hikaru was already passed out on the floor. Or dead? She used what little strength she had to drag her body over to him.

His eyes were shut. She fumbled around for a pulse, but couldn't steady her hands.

As Madoka Akabane's energy ebbed away, she stared out the window, simply because it was where her head happened to fall and she couldn't pick it up. On the tree branch outside, a single black crow perched, as if it were taunting her. But she wouldn't remember that part for months.

* * *

 _November 15th, 2044._

Two teenagers, on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon in a suburb of Osaka, drank tea from a big kettle on the stove. They had just received a text from their mother. A very long and detailed list of things she wanted their help with for the reunion this weekend. Of course they would help, but they didn't need instructions on how to dust off the TV. She was nicknamed 'Dignified Didact' by their family for a reason, it seems.

"It tastes weird." The boy commented, making a grimace. "Maybe I used too many of those tea leaves in the cupboard."

"Sorry bro, but I don't like it either." Kinoko Aruta, otherwise known as sleuth of Katami Private Christian Academy, pushed her cup away. "Too strong."

"Eh, it's fine. I'll just make some of my old recipe." Takahiro cleaned the kettle and got out a bag of mixed tea leaves and berries that he used to make his famous mystery tea. He may have only been fifteen, but he considered himself an expert at tea brewing.

"When are you going to share the recipe?" Kinoko put away her math homework, confident that she knew all the answers.

"Never." Takahiro held the bag of tea leaves close to his chest, and planted it on the top shelf.

"I'll just reverse engineer it." His little sister smirked.

"Good luck with that." He sat down to read a book while the water boiled.

The wind blew violently outside. It was, after all, that time of year. A tree branch broke off and flew past the window.

"Let's hope the siding on our house doesn't get damaged." Kinoko pulled out her computer and began taking down notes. _Natsumi Shirohara, salutatorian of the class of 2046, was acting really weird when the gym teacher asked her to step away from her locker. Maybe a secret stash of porn? Or maybe_ _ **she's**_ _the one with the master key to the school after all. Investigate this when you can. If she is the one with the key, ask how much she wants for it._

Saved. Backed up.

"We've had literal tsunamis before. We'll live." Takahiro brushed his unusually long hair out of his eyes.

Both siblings heard a crash.

"Probably the garage." Kinoko shrugged and went back to documenting her little 'escapades' into the secret rooms of the school's campus.

"I'll check it out." Just as that was said, the tea kettle started roaring. "Or it will wait."

Once the tea was poured, Takahiro figured that there'd be no harm is just finishing this chapter of _11/22/63_ before looking at the garage. He was getting to the best part, or so he was told.

"Next I'm going to find the secret pool in the basement of building D." His sister chatted on, not noticing that her brother was probably very interested in his book. "I want to film a video of me dancing there. Will you-"

"No." He cut her off. "If you keep this up, you'll get us both kicked out of the school. Wait, there's a secret pool in the basement?"

"Yeah. Right beneath the gym. They keep it locked though, so I have to get my hands on one of the janitor's keys."

"How are you so sure this place even exists?" Takahiro placed a bookmark on the page he was reading.

"Would people be talking about it if it wasn't real?" The silver-haired girl put the laptop away.

"People talk about Bigfoot too. Doesn't mean anything."

"You have no proof Bigfoot isn't real."

"I'm not having this banter with you." Takahiro grabbed his temples. "I mean, Mom did tell us about a Mach 20 octopus she helped kill. So I guess you win, the secret pool is real." One of the five cats in the house, Dango, came out of nowhere and jumped on Kinoko's lap, spilling the tea everywhere. Good thing it was nowhere near her computer.

"Aww, who's a pretty kitty?" Kinoko purred.

But things weren't cute right now. Dango climbed on her and rubbed up against her aggressively. Not like she usually did, to say 'this human is mine'. But to say something else entirely.

Shumai, Sushi, Takoyaki, and Shoyu followed into the kitchen, jumping on their owners, hissing and spitting at… something near the bay window.

Takahiro scooped up Takoyaki. It wasn't unusual for the cats to jump on them or rub up against them, but not all of them at once and not while they were visibly upset. Wait… this did happen once before, didn't it? When they had that burglar try to break into their home three years ago, the cats could not be stopped...

 _Crash. Boom. Bang._ Again from the opposite side of the house. And the winds of the storm raged on.

"Okay, **now** I'm going to the garage." Takahiro tried to get up, but he was pinned down by two surprisingly strong cats.

And then… One big crash. The bay window shattered in one fell swoop and the pieces scattered across the floor.

"Kinoko, do NOT get up! That broken glass is dangerous!" He yelled over the wind.

"I won't!" She assured him.

She noticed a flash of black fly by her. Soon it was several flashes, and distinctive _caws_ were a choir around them.

Everything after the happened so quickly the teens couldn't see it. The cats tried to pounce on the birds, but the birds flew away, seemingly taunting them.

Everything went white. The pair woke up in a place they never thought they'd wake up in.

* * *

 _December 26, 2043._

Another pair of siblings sat in their garage, not really bothered by the ground's dirtiness or the weather today. But they were almost 5,500 miles away from the rest.

"… And then I was all like 'No, _you_ should try to get a selfie with that owl', and Kayden was all like 'I dare you'. And what else was I supposed to do? So, long story short, that's how I got this scar on my forearm right before Christmas break started." The younger boy, clad in a hoodie and jeans in 60-something degree heat, finished narrating his epic tale.

Liam Carmichael, who at the age of barely sixteen already considered himself too old for this, rolled his eyes and arose, intent on heading to the shed in the backyard. "Jeffery, you really are a gem."

"Hey, I got a dollar for it. Wouldn't you have done the same if one of your basketball buddies asked?" The fourteen year-old followed him through the freshly cut grass.

"I don't know, dude. Do ya wanna go to the skate park today? The folks won't be back from work for hours."

"I want to go to Hollywood Walk of Fame."

"It'll be swamped with tourists this time of year." Liam struggled to open the door. "I think I speak for both of us when I say we don't want to deal with the jacked-up prices on everything." The door creaked open inch by inch. A spider scurried out.

"Ugh, what I really want is to visit Grandma and Grandpa again." Liam went on, fumbling for the desired skateboard. "Los Angeles gets old when you can't even see the skyline form where you live. Japan was just, why did Mom even leave-"

"It's been seven years since we went. Things are probably different there now. You might not even like it anymore." Jeffery dusted off his own skateboard. He hadn't used it since he was eleven, but seeing it brought back childhood memories. His mother, still blonde (she had embraced going gray recently), pushing Liam back and forth on the swing, himself playing in the mud and their father taking an obscene amount of pictures. They would all go on Line and receive likes from the people he'd only met a handful of times. "Besides, we barely speak Japanese. But sure, to answer your question, we can go to the skate park."

The boys locked the house's door and made their way down the street.

Liam couldn't help but feel a vague sense that something was off. He had lived in this house his whole life, walked down this street on an almost daily basis. The street signs were all the same and everyone's cars were parked in their driveways. Bailey Johnson even waved to him as they passed by. But something was out of place, something was missing.

It was a shame his folks couldn't stay home with them today, but Dad's golf course was always packed right before New Year's and there were numerous family reunions that Mom would interpret for. Was it selfish of him to want to see _his_ family, he wondered? He even wanted to see all his 'aunts and uncles' at those reunions. Seeing the posts of all of his 'cousins' on social media was not cutting it anymore. He remembered making friends with Satoru the moment they locked eyes, and Takahiro seemed like a cool dude. Was it really too much to ask to go back there?

"This reminds me of all the times we went downtown and stayed out 'til two in the morning." Jeffery, blissfully ignorant of his brother's reverie, fell off of the skateboard and into the garden of their neighbors. Hopefully they didn't install security cameras.

"You mean like that time I got my bike stolen and your friend found it in San Diego two days later?" Liam helped his brother up.

"Yeah, that seems like forever ago."

"It was last year." They stopped at a walk sign flashing a red hand, signaling to stop.

"Ah well, that's a lifetime to me. Can I invite James and Nick?"

"Sure. I'm certain one of them will do something stupid and we'll have a wild story to whip out at parties."

While Jeff was busy texting his friends, Liam finally managed to figure out what was wrong here.

That damn crow. He was perched on the stop sign, as if daring them to cross the road. Liam's heart pounded. He had seen more crows in his life than she could count, but he never once was bothered by them. But they never gave him the thousand yard stare before. And were those eyes _red_?

The walk sign displayed a green stick figure. _You don't get to tell me what to do, Mr. Crow. I'm crossing the street even if it kills me._

Liam Carmichael's last thought before he passed out was that the universe had a strange sense of irony, as a sixteen-wheeler came barreling down the road. The boys tried to run, but their feet wouldn't move. And then the pain that followed would be felt for days after.

* * *

 **The other second genners will be introduced within the next few chapters.**

 **Sorry if this chapter made you hungry with all the mentions of food. And please let me know if there was anything lacking.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hang on tight for my next update; I'm not sure when it will be. Starting next week I have to focus on exams/papers and preparing to return to my home country. I will try to get another chapter done in the week I have between finals ending and my flight back to the States (May 23-29), but I can't promise that. So please don't hate me if my next update is in early June.**

 **Anyway, this chapter is very heavily focused on the Shiota girls' relationship with their mother. I may write a oneshot exploring what type of a mother Kayano was, because oh boy, I have more headcanons about her and Nagisa's parenthood than the rest of 3-E combined. Considering she has more emotional baggage than any of them, it's something I'm sure she'd struggle with regardless of how much she wanted it. Mom!Kayano is like my favorite future headcanon in AssClass. But alas, I'm digressing.**

 **The next few chapters will introduce the remaining second genners and focus on them.**

 **Thanks for all reviews. Here are the responses:**

 **TheRoseShadow21: To respond to your reviews on Great Teacher Nagisa (I thought I'd just address them here), it is getting a sequel that was supposed to be posted by now but that didn't pan out. I'm stuck on a title… I've got a working title, but I don't know if it's appropriate. I'll also be making master posts for the second genners from Great Teacher Nagisa, Hello Shooting Star Again, and the sequel to Aftershocks (once again, I am stuck on a title) when I finally get myself organized.  
**

 **Darkprincess238: Yes, that's pretty much what happened with Karmanami here. No, Karma doesn't have any other kids besides Madoka (who isn't biologically his, but he raised her and thinks of her as his daughter) and Hikaru, and he wasn't in any serious relationships when Okuda was married to her first husband. I've got a lot of AU's/headcanons for their future too (I've got a lot of feelings about Karmanami), PM me if you want to know more.**

 **Please review again, I don't know if I like how I handled this chapter, especially the last part.**

* * *

Hotaru and I walked the path down the mountain at a leisurely pace. We had no homework for today, so that left plenty of time to look for food and shelter.

I sensed footsteps approaching.

"Hello Aguri, Hotaru." A very familiar voice came from the left to us.

Our mother stood in front of us. The young Haruna Mase, or Kaede Kayano, or Akari Shiota (well, not Akari Shiota yet) in all her glory. I'd seen plenty of pictures of her from her junior high days, but they didn't quite do her justice. She was petite, slender, and short. Her green hair shone in the fading orange sunlight. Her bright eyes reflected the mountain, and she was perpetually smiling. She just looked so _different_.

Well, that applied to Dad too- Uncle Karma was right, he really did look like a girl in junior high.

"What are you doing?" Her chirpy voice tore me out of my reverie.

"Leaving the classroom." I decided to lie by omission, rather than lie point-blank.

"Ahh, so was I. Let's walk together."

It was weird that she was staying in the woods so late, but I had bigger concerns to worry about right now. She was going to find out about our living situation! What do we do about that?

"Do you walk or take the train?" Hotaru asked her.

"I walk. I'm local to here." Mom chirped as she walked along my side. "Do you take the train?"

"No, we live here." I was sweating like Uncle Okajima in a church.

"Like in town?" A butterfly landed on Mom's head.

"Yes… Very close to here." I kicked a rock down the dirt path.

We were already at the bottom of the mountain. I stopped and pointed left once I got their attention. "We live in this direction."

"Wait, why is your house on the mountain?"

My heart dropped. I accidentally pointed in the wrong direction!

"The shed, you mean? I forgot the way." Hotaru blurted out.

"You're going to a shed? That's where you live?" Our mother asked. The way she asked it would be burned into my mind forever. With such innocence. I had to keep reminding myself that she didn't know our story, even if she knew us better than almost anyone she didn't know who we were or what we were going through.

"It's where we're staying." Hotaru spoke the truth, as usual.

"You don't have anywhere to live?" Mom sounded shocked. And… horrified. Yes, that was the expression on her face, in response to two teenage girls being homeless.

The question from my mother made me nearly fall over. "Um, well… You see..."

"No, we don't." Hotaru opened her mouth again. I realized, in a weird way, I was actually grateful for it. Maybe now we could be helped.

Mom just stared at the ground, twiddling her fingers.

The atmosphere between us was tense, border lining on awkward. There should be no awkwardness between us; she bathed us, cleaned up our vomit, taught us how to use a toilet. I couldn't fathom what could possibly be awkward about us.

"Well… You can stay with me…"

Hotaru and I blinked twice.

"I mean, only if you want to, of course… And it doesn't have to be for a long time…"

"Thank you, could we?" I spoke up for the both of us.

"Of course!" She returned back to her bubbly personality, the one we saw so much of growing up. "I live alone, so I'll love having roommates!~"

She practically skipped back to her apartment, and we followed closely.

"Tadaima." Mom announced as she took off her shoes at the door.

Hotaru and I followed her example. My heart was pounding. We had been to our Dad's childhood home a few times, but we had never seen Mom's apartment while she was a student. She always said that someone probably lives there by now so it was no use looking. And she never took any pictures.

Well, this looked quite a bit like the apartment that my sisters and I lived in briefly, when we were just born. We didn't remember it, but there were plenty of pictures I saw when I went snooping on the family cloud. This place must have been big enough for an entire family. Two bedrooms, one luxurious bathroom with a claw-foot bathtub big enough to really stretch out in, a chandelier over the dining room table- what the hell kind of an apartment has a _dining room_? Everything was draped in deep red- the carpets, the curtains, the bedsheets. Only the most exquisite for Haruna Mase. A butsudan with a photo of my Aunt Aguri and an incense burner sat right next to the television

"Wow." My little sister breathed.

Mom scratched the back of her head with a chuckle. "Don't question the décor, I guess you can say my Dad's got a lot of money."

Grandpa? We never knew him, he died not too long after I was born. In fact, I had realized it long ago, and whenever I came to think about it, it weighed heavy in my heart. The three of us, plus Fujiko, were the last of the Yukimura bloodline. Mom had no other living family.

She treasured us so much. Swaddled us up in warm clothes any day of the year, was terrified to let us out alone, cut up our food for us. I felt guilt pool in my stomach over me lying to her. Even now, when she doesn't know what our relationship really is, she shows us so much generosity. Could she have sensed the true relationship between us?

She lead us through the dining room, down the hall to the red bedroom we saw earlier. "You can stay here." It had a wooden desk, overhead lighting, and a nice window that oversaw the city. "How long have you lived here?" I asked Mom.

"This apartment? I just moved in a few weeks ago. My room is down there if you need anything at any time." She pointed to the left. I saw a room just like ours, but the walls were covered in movie posters it looked impeccably clean. Then Mom clapped her hands together, causing her green hair to ripple a bit. "So let's make dinner!"

Hotaru made a beeline for the kitchen and started pouring the broth. She always like doing that, she said she liked the way it smelled. We followed, making note of what ingredients we needed to get out for ramen.

"Fujihara, could you please turn the stovetop on?" Mom said while dropping eggs into a pot of water.

Her words stabbed my heart. It just felt so… _strange_. I was Aguri, Little Aguri, Baby Aguri, any of those things. I was not Fujihara. Especially not to my mother. She _gave_ me this name. It was like when I tried out for that play in the seventh grade because I wanted to be like Mom, but I just couldn't get used to being called Hippolyta. Like wearing someone else's skin; how did she love this so much?

But I had to keep up the façade. "Sure, Kayano. I'll start making the broth."

* * *

The ramen, complete with miso broth, hard-boiled egg, pork, and spring onions sat in bowls in front of us at the table. It smelled amazing, especially to a pair of teens who hadn't eaten properly in days.

"So, how did you get into 3-E?" I asked our mother between mouthfuls of ramen. Had to keep some kind of conversation going.

 _I went to Kunugigaoka in disguise, because I didn't want to be recognized as Haruna Mase. That's where I met your Daddy, and Koro-sensei. And Koro-sensei knew your Aunt Aguri, and loved her very much, but she died. We decided to name you after her._

My mother's words, that story she repeated to me time and time again, rung in my ears. I could recite it by heart. I knew the truth, regardless of whatever she would tell us now.

"Oh, I'd always wanted to enroll at Kunugigaoka, so I took the entrance exam and passed." She seemed to be deep in thought, staring at the noodles she picked up with her chopsticks. "But I was clumsy and ended up breaking one of the principal's trophies."

Been there.

"And you? How did you two end up in E Class?" She caught us off guard with that question.

"Well, funny enough, it's kind of the same story with us." I laughed as I told her of the first events in our school year at Kunugigaoka, leaving out the part about how it was all a plot to get into 3-E, how we were her kids from the future, and how we came here for Koro-sensei's help. All the stuff she didn't need to know yet.

"Well, we have that in common." Mom wiped the corners of her eyes after laughing hard enough to cry.

"So it was kind of like fate that we met." Hotaru said, staring at her lap.

I could have cringed at the cheesiness if she said that in any other context, but this was different.

"Yeah. It might have been."

I turned to our mother.

"I look forward to staying with you, Ma- Kayano."

Mom just smiled at us. "I look forward to it too!"

I felt like a criminal, lying to my own mother.

* * *

At 12:30 am, I stumbled into the bathroom, cursing my screwed-up sleep schedule that I owe to the owls hooting on the mountain all night. My mother's room was adjacent to the bathroom, and her door was slightly ajar. I snuck past it carefully, not wanting to disturb her.

I heard my mother whisper to herself, in a voice so soft it was barely more than breathing.

 _"If I can't help my sister, I'll at least help another Aguri."_

* * *

"I got the scholarship." I informed Hotaru as I checked my inbox Sunday morning. Mom had left to run errands in town. I considered offering to go with her, but the stomach pains I woke up with held me back. She promised to get medicine for that while she was out.

"So did I." My sister stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her.

"Good." I put my phone to charge. "It's a good amount of money, but it won't last forever. So keep applying for them, but for now we can pay this year's tuition at Kunugigaoka and pay Mom for rent and groceries."

Speaking of which, Mom entered the door five seconds later carrying plastic bags. "I got some stuff to make pudding!"

Hotaru pumped her fist in the air. "Yay! Pudding!" She helped Mom put the groceries in the fridge. It's obvious where my sister got her sweet tooth from.

"I was just wondering, strangers might think we're sisters." Mom joked, probably referring to our resemblances. Oh, if only she knew.

"Yeah, I think they'd believe that." I helped put the food away. Huh. So many banana kit kats. And pudding kit kats. And cheesecake kit kats. "Wow, I guess you like kit kats, huh?"

"Hmm? Those are for you two." She gave me a quizzical look.

"What?"

"I saw you take a big bag out of you backpack earlier. I figured you really liked them."

"Oh." Yes, the ones we intending to bring for Koro-sensei. "Yeah, we sure do. Thank you very much," Really, I could take or leave kit kats, but my heart was warmed that she did that. I was ready to cry.

"Hey, K-Kayano?" I turned towards her.

"Hmm?" She hummed.

"Sis and I are getting the money were owed on Friday, so we'll pay you rent then."

"Alright! But don't fret about it, pay me whenever you can." Mom's golden eyes were bright and sweet. She didn't even ask where the money was coming from.

"Big sis!" Hotaru beamed. I saw Mom cringe a bit, but my sister was none the wiser. "Can we go clothes shopping when the money comes in too?" We had used the last our pocket money to buy these school uniforms, so I nodded.

"Sounds like a good plan, I can recommend all the best outlets in town." Mom took her hair down. We knew those long flowing locks, but we only ever saw them as black, not green.

"Oh, and that reminds me of one more thing," I stared at my feet. "… Can we stay here for a while?" All I was doing so far was taking and not giving here. "We have enough money to pay you rent indefinitely, and we'll take up our share of household chores."

"Stay as long as you want." She smiled. It melted my heart.

"Thank you, Kayano." The name still didn't feel correct on my tongue.

* * *

The three of us walked to school the next morning. The springtime air was fresh and crisp and the birds sang. Mom stopped to scatter some seed for them. The quails ate greedily. A crow swooped down, scaring them all away. Panic mode. I grabbed both of my family members and dragged then up the path.

Mom was visibly puzzled. "Do you not like birds?"

"Just not crows." I choked out. Dammit, what's a good excuse? "I was attacked by one as a child." I pulled that out of thin air, and showed her a scar on my hand that I got from closing the door on it when I was six. "See?"

And it looked like she bought it, hook, line, and sinker. "Oh, I'm sorry. I've never actually seen them up on the mountain, but I'm new here just like you. Maybe they're rare."

I sighed in relief when I looked back and saw that the crow was no longer there. "Well, we'll be late if we don't hurry."

Hotaru nodded, a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth.

"Oh, just one thing…" Mama 'Kayano' shuffled her feet nervously. "Did you hear anything last night?"

Time to play dumb. "What do you mean?"

"Oh," She flushed red. "Well, I just sometimes have nightmares. So don't be scared if you hear noises coming from my bedroom at night."

That? Oh, that totally slipped my mind, but I knew of it. There was no way I couldn't have. She'd had them all throughout my childhood, sometimes waking up screaming and inconsolable and Dad would stay up with her until the sun rose rubbing her back and whispering to her that everything would be alright.

"Just don't concern yourself with it, okay Aguri?"

Good. That felt better.

"Okay."

* * *

Midori Chiba was unable to sit up. It felt like something was sitting on her, pinning her down. She didn't really believe in demons, but maybe this experience changed her mind. So, she prayed to her ancestors to help her free herself from whatever the fuck it was that was suffocating her.

"Hey Satoru… Can you feel it too?" She whispered.

"It's not on me, but I know it's here." His voice sounded like it was nearby.

She wiggled, she reached around and found something solid. It seemed like a loose piece of floorboard, or something, she didn't really care. Midori pulled with all of her strength. She was caught by a hand- it must have been Satoru's- that pulled her up, and out from under the creature.

She huffed a "Thanks", then tripped and fell on cloth that she didn't see there. She unwittingly had pulled open curtains that she didn't even realize were there. It was clear based on the position of the sun in the sky that it was around three o'clock in the afternoon. A dark figure scurried away.

They were both blinded by the light. Where the hell were they? They knew that they had been here before, but why were they here now?

And why was this room full of people?

 _Hell is other people,_ a line from a play echoed in her head.

* * *

"Ugh… What did I do last night?" Jeffery clutched his temples, gaining consciousness as the light flooded in.

"Whatever it was, I must have done it too." Liam Carmichael struggled to get up. The pain still radiated throughout his entire body. Wait, he just remembered- "Were we hit by a fucking _car_?"

"Not just any car. A sixteen-wheeler _truck_."

"Same difference." Liam's eyes finally adjusted to the light. Eight other people were sprawled across the floor of the room, and he recognized each and every one of them. They didn't look like they were doing well either.

Satoru and Midori caught his eyes, both looking like they'd seen a ghost.

"The Chiba siblings… What happened here?"

"Wish I could tell you…" Satoru visibly shuddered.

* * *

Their conversation woke Madoka Akabane up. She immediately shot up, sensing that danger had fled the room. Hikaru was crammed in a corner. The memory of that crow would not leave her mind. Was it just her imagination, or was it laughing at her? She went to poke her brother.

"Hey, Hikaru. Otouto, wake up."

Hikaru was slower to get up. He pushed her hand away. "I don't wanna get up. Five more minutes."

"You'll want to get up once you remember what happened to us."

The memories came flooding back to the red-haired boy. The tea that didn't taste right, the passing out, and the caws of the birds.

"Did Dad spike that tea and prank us?" His head was pounding at his sister helped him to stand up.

"Do you really think he'd do that?" Madoka coughed.

"Okay, maybe not to _us_." He admitted. "Maybe to Aunt and Uncle Shiota-"

"Shiota? That's my family!"

A voice from the dark corner spoke up. Kintaro Sugino stepped out of the shadows, his brother emerging seconds later.

"Oh, well… I know all of you…" Kintaro mumbled as he looked around the room, and took stock of who all these people were. "Wait, why is my family here?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out." Liam finally gained the strength to stand up.

Nobuhiko rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and gave another yawn. "So it happened to all of you too?"

"What? The showing up here with no memory or explanation of getting here?" Satoru said. "Yeah, that's what happened to us."

"And us." Jeffery chimed in.

"And us." Hikaru added.

"Well, there's one more pair that need to awake." Midori glanced over at the Aruta siblings, who were laying in the direct sunlight. "And I have a feeling that the same thing happened to them too.

* * *

Takahiro got up slowly, blinking to focus his eyesight. "Ah… Kinoko, are you there?"

"… Yeah." She was already sitting up. "And look at who else is here."

Takahiro turned on his other side, and adjusted to the shock much more quickly once he saw what Kinoko was talking about.

"Why are all of you guys here?"

"We don't know any more than you do." Madoka sighed.

The ten children stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

"So... What now?"

Just then, the door swung open.

* * *

"Aguri!" I got roared at my familiar voices as walked in the door. I was just sent in here during P.E. to return some of the equipment! No need to attack me. But I dropped the tug-or-war ropes I was holding when I saw who was in the shed with me.

"What! Kintaro, Satoru, Liam, Jeff, Midori, and- Everyone!? Why are you all here?"

"We could ask you that." A brown-haired boy picked up a baseball he found on the floor (Was it Nobuhiko Sugino?). "You got transported here too?"

"Yes, but why do you all look like you're fourteen? Satoru, you were twelve when I left. Nobuhiko was nine. And-" I turned to the pair in the corner with black and red hair, respectively. "Who are you guys!?"

"We're Madoka and Hikaru Akabane." The black-haired girl approached me. "I guess I look different?"

"You were seven and five when I last spoke to you." I brought my hand up to my mouth.

"Oh, I'm not offended. I'm just shocked. But that's not what I remember..." Madoka shuddered. "How old are you now?"

"Fifteen." I had gooseflesh.

Takahiro- Or who I assumed was Takahiro Aruta, he was ten when I left- held up his hands. "Alright, alright. We need to discuss this. First of all, where are we?"

"The storage shed. I'm returning P.E. equipment." I picked up the ropes and put then on their designated hooks.

"Is this where I think it is?" It had clearly dawned on him.

"If you think it's the assassination classroom, then yes." I shut the door tightly. "By the way, you all traveled back in time. It's 2015, Koro-sensei is still alive, and all of our folks are students here."

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds passed.

"WHAT!?"

"I know, I had trouble believing it myself. But look," I whipped out my phone and showed off a selfie I took with my 'classmates' in the background and Koro-sensei with his tentacle on my arm. He insisted that he be included too. It was dated two hours ago.

"So it's real. I don't know how this could be faked." The girl I had to assume was Kinoko Aruta was in shock.

"Of course it's real. When was the last time Aguri Shiota told a lie?" Kintaro defended me. His words made guilt bubble up inside me.

"Anyways. Long story short, Hotaru and I enrolled as students here, and I gotta get back to class before they come looking for me." I began to back toward the door. "Classes end in half an hour. Just- stay put, okay? It was hard enough coming up with a story to explain myself and my sister, your appearances are going to be even harder to explain." I was already halfway out the door when Uncle Isogai called for me.

"Fujihara? Are you alright in there?"

"Yes, I'm coming." I called back.

"Singular sister? Where's Fuji-san?" Kintaro looked hurt. "And why are they calling you-"

"I swear I will explain the full story thirty minutes from now, but no, she didn't come with us and we're going by fake names. Just please, I beg of you, _stay put_ for thirty minutes."

I left and shut the door tightly, while chasing after my family-turned-classmates.

"Did you run into trouble in there?"

"I just couldn't figure out where to put the ropes. Anyway, class is about to start, so let's hurry. Or Koro-sensei might strangle us with tentacles like he did with Sugino today."

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 **1\. Japan has all kinds of flavors of kit kats, I've even seen sake flavor. Yes, pudding kit kats are real, and they are amazing.**

 **2\. Butsudan: A Buddhist household altar. It can be dedicated to the Buddha or Bodhisattvas, but in this case it is to dead relatives. The canonical book Korotan D (you can find translations on tumblr) implies that Kayano is Buddhist, so I assumed she'd have one for her sister.  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm dreadfully sorry for the delay, but… This chapter was very difficult to write. Finals sucked, but I survived. Then I came back to America, and my computer decided to stop allowing multiple programs to run (Sadly, MS Word included). I can't figure out what wrong or afford to replace it, so I'll take it to the repair shop later this week. This chapter was initially written solely to introduce the next half of the second genners, but I didn't like how that draft turned out and just shelved it and switched gears. I'm really sorry for the wait, but please let me know how this chapter turned out. It was a lot of work and I don't even know what to think about it (It's more dialogue heavy than I'd prefer). Parts of me are considering re-writing it.  
**

 **That Mom!Kayano oneshot is very well on its way. It's shaping up to be a long one too, like 10k+ words in total. So are a few other fics. I will be posting much more often this summer (This will probably get updates every 7-10 days), which is good because I'm juggling a lot of stories and am finally free of writer's block.**

 **Thanks for all faves, follows, and reviews. Responses:**

 **Darkprincess238: Right on the money. Madoka and Karma are very close.  
**

 **Guest: I love it too!**

 **TheRoseShadow21: Yep, .8% alcohol content. So it'd take a lot of them to get drunk, but alcoholic indeed.**

 **Goodcreator: Yes, that is right. These are Nagikae's kids. I hope your questions will be answered soon. :** **)**

 **Please review again and thank you for your support.**

* * *

It may have only been thirty minutes, but how thirty minutes dragged. Chemistry. It had never been my favorite subject. And I had no earthly clue what Koro-sensei was talking about. Covalent bonding? Whatever, I was just biding my time. I subtly tried to text my sister under the desk.

 **Wait until after class. You won't believe what's happening now.**

"Fujihara." Koro-sensei turned a darker shade of gray, almost black. "No texting during class. I'll confiscate it the next time I see it."

I put the phone in my bag, hitting 'send' at the last moment. "I'm sorry, Koro-sensei."

"Please don't let it happen again. School is for learning." He turned back to the board to draw diagrams.

I looked at my sister out of the corner of my eye, who gave me the thumbs up sign.

Finally, the bell rung and class was let out. Hotaru looked at me expectantly.

"Class, before you go," Koro-sensei sped towards the door and stretched out to block the exit. "We have another quiz tomorrow. So prepare yourself, and be sure to come to class."

Terasaka groaned next to me. He looked exactly the same at 15 as he did at 35.

Hotaru walked up to me. "So what's all this about?"

I put my finger to my lips. _"I'll show you. Storage shed. Now."_ I leaned in and whispered.

"Hiya, Aguri-chan, Hotaru-chan!" Our mother was next to us, wearing that friendly smile again. My heart ached.

"Looks like the new kids are on first name basis already." Terasaka scoffed, glaring at us.

"Still in a bad mood from when you tried to sacrifice Nagisa?" Mom met his gaze, as if to challenge him. "And it backfired spectacularly?"

"Fuck off." He sauntered off, his friends joining him. Hmm. He always did seem grumpy, but he was never rude to me personally.

"Don't take it personally." Our mother waved the interaction away. "Terasaka's rude to everyone."

"It seems like it. Anyway, we have to stay a bit late, Koro-sensei's giving us tutoring in civics." I lied again, feeling that now-familiar guilt well up in my gut. It was a perfect lie, Koro-sensei had just left the building to fly over to India to grab an after-school snack. So he couldn't call us out on our bullshit. "We aren't quite on the same page as everyone else. Our old school hadn't covered this material yet."

"Ah, I see."

All bullshit. But bullshit has a point sometimes. At least, that's what I tried to tell myself.

"Okay~ I'll text you the address so you remember where we live."

"Thanks Kayano. We'll be home at around seven."

"See you then." She waved us good-bye and skipped out the door, joining Dad and Sugino.

"Hey wait, where did un-Okajima go?" My sister turned her attention towards the empty desk near where our 'uncle' sat earlier today.

"Yeah, he was here just a few hours ago…"

* * *

"Okay," En route to the shed, I kept looking behind us, just to make sure no one was witnessing our little escapade. "Promise not to freak out."

"I promise." She assured me. She must have been picking up on my paranoia, because she was glancing over her shoulder too.

I put my hands over her mouth in anticipation. "Don't ask me how, but our cousins are here."

I pushed my hands in to muffle Hotaru's "WHAAA-" as much as I could.

"Whhhmpf!"

I let go of her mouth.

"How did **that** happen?"

"I'm guessing the same way we did. I don't know for sure, but we're headed to see them right now, so you ask."

Hotaru stopped right in front of the shed's door and hyperventilated. I patted her shoulder.

"Do you need a minute before we go in?"

She clutched my hand, nodding _no_. I'd carry her if I were any bigger than her, but we were both less than blessed in that department.

 _Then, here goes._ I only let the door open a crack and shoved my sister in, following suit and closing the door very tightly.

Nobuhiko's voice was easily recognizable. "Okay, never have I ever gotten arrested." He sneezed from the dust that the draft stirred up. "Aguri?"

"I prayed you'd come back, and you did." Takahiro coughed.

"Of course I did." I locked the door, just to be safe.

They were all sitting in a circle with their hands up. "Is that Hotaru?" Satoru asked. At least, it sounded like him.

"Yes." Hotaru took a moment to get a good look at the 'family'. "Wow. Aguri wasn't lying."

"Of course not. We've been over this, Aguri doesn't lie." Kintaro came to my defense.

 _You don't know the half of it,_ I bit my tongue.

* * *

My sister and I sat down and we all arranged ourselves in a circle.

"So... First, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room." I breathed.

"You mean how are we all here?" Liam pondered.

"Er, not that elephant. I think we're all in agreement that we can't quite figure that part out yet." I was sure I had a sweatdrop.

"Maybe some Koro-sensei tentacle science. I don't know, I flunked seventh-grade physics." Midori said.

"What I meant is, _why_ did we travel back in time to the legendary Assassination Classroom?"

"Oh. _That_ elephant." Madoka sighed.

I saw my sister shake, almost vibrate. Yes, we had our own reasons to be happy about coming here, but the question of Fujiko's illness was still up in the air. As far as we knew, we were trapped here. Staying around until Koro-sensei could help out our sister (We never heard about Koro-sensei having any healing abilities, but considering all of the other things he's capable of it's something we expected) was our plan.

"Fuji-san is sick." I broke the silence. "We came to the mountain to pray to Koro-sensei for her health, and here we are now. That's our story"

Kintaro gasped. "Is she okay?"

"We hope. But we have no way of knowing for now."

"We had our own little discussion in the half hour you were gone." Takahiro started. "It's pretty much unanimous. We were all minding our own business when those damn crows swept in and we woke up here."

Ah. The crows. So it wasn't just us. "We had the birds too."

"Well," Liam spoke in broken, heavily accented Japanese. "The alternative for _us_ would be getting hit by a fucking car, so I'm fine with this."

"A sixteen-wheeler." Jeff corrected him in English.

"Oh, you two don't speak Japanese, right?" I turned towards them.

"We don't really." Liam choked out. "Um. Maybe a little."

"Well, you might be in trouble. That's all we speak in Japan."

"No shit."

"Midori, be nice." Her brother chided her.

I whipped out my phone and started to google 'Teachers of Japanese as a second language'.

"No one's questioning how you have the iPhone 37c?" Kinoko peered over my shoulder.

"Eh, it looks close enough to the ones they have now." I found no nearby results. Dammit.

"So, it'll be easy to get the terrible grades to be placed into E Class. But how will we pass the entrance exam?" Jeffrey bit his nails.

A lightbulb seemed to go off in Liam's head. "Jeffrey only passed Algebra I because he bribed his math teacher with a pack of M&M's and a can of root beer-"

"Shut up, Liam."

"-So we can try something like that." He finished.

"That only worked because that teacher was later caught smoking weed with the freshman."

"Yeah, I don't think your bribes will work with the Kunugigaoka administration. But Irina will be here in a few weeks. Until then, Koro-sensei's a great teacher."

Another pause. I could hear everyone else's hearts pounding.

"So you expect us to enroll here?" Takahiro whispered, but everyone could hear it.

"I'm sure it's what we were all thinking and just hadn't gotten around to saying." Hikaru spoke up for the first time during our little discussion.

"... I was thinking it too." Satoru confessed.

"I did always want to meet Koro-sensei." Madoka breathed.

"Does anyone disagree here? We all want to enroll?" Takahiro took charge again, for which I was grateful. I never did like being the center of attention.

"I can't believe I'm meeting Koro-sensei." Liam smiled. "Besides the whole being-torn-away-from-our-homes-and-not-having-any-clue-what's-happening, this almost seems too good to be true."

"Unfortunately, we can't all be in E Class. I don't want to accept that, but it's the truth." One Aguri Shiota had to ruin it. Of course.

"Why not?" Nobuhiko sounded hurt. "If it's a matter of age, we can just forge our birth certificates."

"Because it would make forty people in one class. There's _got_ to be a rule against that."

"Koro-sensei can do anything." He crossed his arms. "He can teach a class of forty students."

 _Koro-sensei can do anything._ That was a the mantra on my lips when I arrived here too. And yes, I did (and still do) believe it to be true. "It's not about what Koro-sensei can and can't do. It's about what Principle Asano would allow, and he would never permit 40 students in a class. He's not exactly known for being liberal with interpretations of the rules."

"Is there even space for forty kids in that room?"

"There isn't."

In the half-light, I saw Kintaro frown. I was sorry to break his heart, considering how fragile he was. Your mother running away in the middle of the night without so much as a note, just when you've reached the age where you know you've been abandoned has got to be a catastrophe on your self-esteem. But I have to be realistic here.

 _Yes, Aguri Shiota. Be realistic. You were just thrown back in time and now have to kill a superhuman Mach 20 octopus, assisted by 11 other time travelers and all while praying for said octopus to heal your sister's mystery illness. Aw, what's the use in clinging to reality anymore?_

"Let's make a Line chat." Takahiro suggested.

"Always full of bright ideas." Someone responded. I couldn't tell who though, my head was still swimming.

I gripped my forehead, feeling like I was in a dream that I would wake up from any second now. "And where are you going to be staying? My sister and I already have arrangements. But you can't all stay here in the shed. It's used every day. And the shack Hotaru and I found days ago could barely accommodate us, yet alone ten people."

"Don't worry about it." Kintaro to the rescue. "Remember the abandoned house behind the library?"

"The one you and I played in as kids when we thought our folks wouldn't notice?" Nobuhiko added.

"That one. The last time I asked Dad about it, he said it had been abandoned for as long as he could remember. He even said that his junior high baseball team used to hide their when the rival school was gonna beat their asses."

... Okay. That was taken care of, right? It felt like my soul was attempting to leave my body. The discussions my cousins were having became muffled noises. I couldn't make out one person's voice from another's. The one sensation I was cognizant of was a soft hand on my back. One voice rose above the others.

 _Aguri. Aguri, dear. Take a deep breath._

I'd heard that voice many times throughout my childhood, but I never knew a name or face for her. It wasn't like when my aunt spoke to me. I knew who she was instinctively. But not this mystery woman.

But I might as well listen to her. Okay, breathe. And breathe. I slowly managed to reclaim my own sanity.

"Well, I'm just glad you figured out that dilemma." I sighed. My own voice seemed alien to me. "Just... Let me know when you all take the entrance exams, okay? You can't all apply at the same time, that will look suspicious. It also might be wise to go by fake names, like the women in my family seem to do."

"Can I claim I'm transferring in to kill Koro-sensei?" Kinoko asked.

"That will look **really** suspicious."

My phone buzzed. It was a post in the E Class girls chat.

 **Rio Nakamura: I'm trying to get some girls together for karaoke this weekend! Like this post if you're interested.**

I tapped the post to like it.

"Ah, trying to bond with the family? Tell them that you were born in Haruna Mase's dressing room in between shooting scenes for _Gone with the Waves_. That'll win you friends." Midori adjusted her scarf.

"No, that's a stupid rumor." I blushed. Who even believed that story anyway? "Besides, that movie hasn't even come out yet. And I'm trying to be subtle here."

"The timing does add up."

"Shut up."

* * *

"Tadaima." We took off our shoes and entered Mom's apartment.

She came out of the kitchen. "How did your tutoring go?"

"Not badly." I placed my bag on the floor and hung my wet umbrella on the hook.

"I'm making dinner." She was wearing an apron. "Tempura with rice."

"We'll help you. Wait, what's that spot on your neck?"

"I got burned with hot oil."

"Are you okay? Let me get you water." Hotaru ran toward the sink. I got a bandage out of the bathroom cabinet.

Mama 'Kayano' smiled. "Thank you. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes."

She was clearly in pain and trying to hide it. I knew that smile any day. She wore it whenever Grandma visited (I still didn't understand why). She wore it when she snuck out of the house with us, disguised, and bumped into her old manager (the moment we were home, she ranted about how he worked her for 20 hours straight some days and refused to allow her lunch breaks, and dared to scold her when she passed out on the set.). And according to Fuji-san, she wore it when she greeted the doctors, but not by the time they left the office.

I shook myself out of my reverie and went towards the bedroom to get into pajamas (I always did that during rainy weather). I need to focus now.

"Okay, I'll be out in a minute."

* * *

Ugh. This math homework was taking forever. Hotaru and "Kayano" had already finished theirs an hour ago, but here I still was at the dining room table at 8 pm, struggling over question seven out of ten. Mom was braiding Hotaru's hair in the living room. Those two were already inseparable, but that's nothing new to us.

"Can I do your hair next, Kaede-chan?" Hotaru used a Sailor Moon compact mirror (it must have been Mom's) to look at her new hairstyle.

Mom stopped what she was doing. She brought a hand to the back of her neck. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, but she had a second of hesitation.

"… That's sweet of you, but my hair is very delicate."

"I'll be gentle."

"Thanks for the offer, but… I have a box of cake mix, how about we try this recipe I found the other day?"

"Sure." My sister responded. But it clearly didn't escape her notice that Mom was avoiding the conversation.

* * *

The alarm ended my sleep rather tragically. But at least it was finally tomorrow. I was beginning to think that yesterday would never end.

I toddled into the bathroom, unsteady on my feet. The toaster popped in the kitchen.

By the time I got my teeth and hair brushed, breakfast was made.

"… Sorry I slept in." I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Those two were morning people, I couldn't understand it.

"It's okay, you were up late doing that homework." Hotaru put a plate in front of me. "Now eat."

"I'll do the dishes." I sat down at the table "Itadakimasu."

I couldn't help but notice that mom was scratching her neck again.

"That oil burn must suck, huh?"

She nodded, maintaining eye contact with me. "It sure does."

* * *

The day went on without much fanfare. I continued to duck into the bathroom to check the group chat with our cousins. There was a photo of the house they were staying at. Good. Nice and abandoned indeed, and it was tucked away in the quiet part of town, where it would probably go unnoticed. There was even talk of applying for scholarships and getting jobs to pay for the tuition.

 **Aguri Shiota: When are your entrance exams?**

 **Satoru Chiba: Mine's is on Monday.**

 **Takahiro Aruta: I can't get one until later next week.**

 **Madoka Akabane: Can someone help me fill out this form? I don't know what I'm doing.**

 **Nobuhiko Sugino: Sure, where are you right now? This house is huge.**

 **Madoka Akabane: I'm in the kitchen. I made some rice I bought at the convenience store, by the way. Let's make it last for all of us.**

 **Liam Carmichael: Thanks Akabane-san. Where on the website is the application link?**

 **Midori Chiba: Left column, forth one down. I'll translate anything you have to write. I always did get good grades in English.**

 **Aguri Shiota: Seems like you're all settling in. I'll visit you all in a few days. Just let me know if there's anything you need on campus.**

 **Kinoko Aruta: Thanks, Aguri. You're a sweetheart.**

Blush. I peeked out from behind the shed, which I was using as cover so a certain octopus wouldn't catch me.

 **Madoka Akabane: Uh, have any of you seen Hikaru? He was here just a minute ago, but then I turned around and her was gone…**

Huh? It was impossible to miss that kid, he was 5 foot 8! Okajima wasn't back yet either, and Kimura's desk was empty. If this were six months ago, I would have said it was some kind of sickness going around, but something else was probably up. Another mystery.

"Hiya. Long time no see, Nagisa." A very familiar voice rang out from behind us.

I went back around the shed, only to see my beloved 'Uncle Karma'.

Well… when I knew him he didn't have this predatory aura, like a cat by a mouse hole. And he wasn't this violent. But I had grown up with the stories, and this was what I expected. What kind of relationship would we have now, I wondered? What do I say to an uncle who doesn't know he's my uncle?

* * *

By the end of the day, Mimura had disappeared without a trace. We never saw him leave. It was just like he was there one moment and then gone the next. His name wasn't listed in the class's groupchat either. We googled him and found nothing.

"Hey Sugino, do you know what happened to Mimura?" I asked him as we packed up for the end of the day. Karma's attempts to throw knives at Koro-sensei went on in the background, but I was becoming desensitized to it.

"Huh?" He gave us that I-think-you-need-to-take-a-nap look. "Who are you talking about?"

"The guy with the bowl cut."

"…Fujihara-san, there's no one like that in our class."

What!? Of course there was! I pulled out my phone to look at the selfie I took with the entire class in the background. Yes, everyone was there, they had to be. Koro-sensei. Mom, Dad, Sugino, 'Okuda'… But no Mimura. Or Okajima. Or Kimura.

My heart pounded. _No_ , I can't start disassociating again.

Sugino patted my back. "Could you possibly be thinking of someone in your old school?"

Hotaru and I looked at each other. We needed to save face, but it felt like the world was collapsing around us. I ceased thinking, and all functions that depended on thinking for now.

He gently rubbed my back. "It's okay, Fujihara-san, Hotaru-san. Maybe you're just having trouble adjusting, and that's okay."

Hara's voice joined in, and I heard a hand settle on my sister's back too. "I know it took a few weeks for me to adjust to Kunugigaoka, and I'm a local. Just take it easy for a while, I can teach you how to make the perfect onigiri."

Those words. I know them, I know their meanings, and I know what they mean all put together. But I couldn't make sense of it. Were they making fun of me? No, my family wouldn't do that.

Mom walked towards us. That realization turned on the metaphorical lights. Control was slowly returning to every inch of me.

"… Yeah. I just realized we were thinking of an old classmate." Hotaru laughed awkwardly, and I joined in. "Maybe we're catching something."

"Then let's get you home." Mom felt my forehead. "Eat some Okayu and go to bed early."

 _Do any of them know that we live with her?_ I quickly pushed the thought out of my head. I had too many things to think about right now. The fact that the looming panic attack was no longer a threat was enough for today.

* * *

"I don't get it." My sister looked through our notes (hidden in our notepad for English class). "Why are our classmates disappearing?"

It was well past midnight, and we didn't want to wake our mother up, so we spoke in hushed whispers.

"I think it's the same forces that are behind why we all went back in time in the first place." I lay back in bed. I wanted to get to sleep early to comply with my mother's advice (even if I wasn't actually sick), but that didn't happen.

"Well, probably. But why? Can we get our classmates back?"

"Hotaru. Sit down. You'll wake up our downstairs neighbors with your pacing."

She stopped and sat on the bed.

"I'm going to start recording things. You know, conversations. We can see if the recordings disappear later, like the photos did. Let's get Ritsu's help." My sister suggested.

Good idea, but did Ritsu even come with us?

"Hey Ritsu?" I asked my phone.

Nothing.

"Ritsu?"

Radio silence. And there was no Mobile Ritsu app that could be located, on either of our phones. So we were on our own for that one.

"Oh well." I turned over on my side. The rules of time travel aren't always convenient, I guess. I tried to stay awake to talk with my sister more, but I could feel sleep closing in on me.

"Do you think Koro-sensei might know what's going on here?" Hotaru turned towards me, like I was the one with all of the answers.

"Possibly." I drifted into sleep with that thought on my mind, and in my dreams it morphed into an overwhelming feeling of despair.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 **Okayu: Rice porridge, often flavored with chicken stock. It's usually given to sick people.**

 **The next couple chapters will involve lots of second genner-E Class bonding. It will be up next week. And if you're wondering what's up with some of the characters disappearing and such, well that will be explained soon enough.**

 **Thank you for your support and I'll see you again in the next chapter.**


	6. Chapter 6

**So… I've been taking way longer than expected to release chapters for this. And I'm sorry for that. There are two reasons for this:**

 **1\. I've not been in the best place since I got back from Japan and I keep expecting things to get better for me (allowing me to prioritize writing more), but they haven't been. Not to turn this into a pity party, but my personal life has been a trainwreck. I'm getting two surgeries soon and I have a history of taking a long time to recover from those, and my post-graduate plans have been thwarted for monetary reasons (so I've been panicking and trying to find another job suited to my skillset).**

 **2\. I underestimated how difficult this fic is to write. I have the rules of time travel written out and established, but I really need to take the time to think out every event in this fic and the consequences of it. That's par for the course for time travel, really, but it's a new topic to me.**

 **Sorry I keep throwing out excuses, but there are many reasons for the shoddy update schedule (and REALLY sorry if you follow Fake Smiles, which hasn't been updated in three months- I find the Asanos to be difficult characters to write. I swear it's still alive). I can't promise any particular update schedule, I will just write chapters whenever I can. I assure you none of my fics are abandoned, and if I've mentioned a new project it's at least in progress.**

 **There's also the fact that I wrote and published that Mom!Kayano oneshot. It's under the name** ** _Iridescence_** **and can be found on my profile. It's really long (just shy of 12,000 words) and was a lot of work, but I'm very happy with the results. Thanks to everyone who read/fave'd/followed/reviewed it.**

 **Other notes: This chapter follows my headcanon that Nagisa's dad didn't pay much if anything in child support. The remaining second genners will now be introduced slowly, at a rate of a few per chapter.**

 **Please enjoy and review.**

 **7/9/18- Edited to fix grammar/spelling/consistency errors.**

* * *

"What's it going to be then?"

The waiter's voice pulled me back to reality. I hadn't even looked at half of this menu; it was twelve pages long!

"I'll have what she's having." I gestured to Hotaru next to me.

"Okay. Two hot fudge sundaes, extra hot fudge."

"Can we afford this?"

"We get the payment for the scholarship on Sunday, so yeah." I sipped my coffee. Wow, in my time they don't make it like this.

"Okay then. So what is our next move?"

"Research."

"What kind of research? And how?" The whipped cream and cinnamon on Hotaru's hot chocolate left a mustache.

"Wipe your face. Anyway, as I see it we have two separate problems: Koro-sensei not healing Fuji-san, and the disappearances."

"What about how we and the cousins are here? Isn't that a mystery?"

"Mystery, sure. But I count it as a blessing." Our sundaes were placed in front of us.

As of today, we were recording all conversations we had in the school. No new developments occurred so far.

"Maybe the Principal knows something. I remember our folks talking about his powers of… persuasion." Hotaru dug into her sundae. "He may not be _causing_ the disappearances, but he could be complicit."

"Hotaru, you're a genius!"

"Huh?" There was fudge and ice cream all over her mouth.

"Nevermind. We have to figure out a way to get into the principal's office. I'm sure he keeps the place closely guarded."

The tab was placed in front of us. Hotaru tried to grab it. "I think we'll need some help from the cousins."

"No way you're paying. I am." I took it from her.

"I think I've seen you somewhere before." The waiter collected our dishes, making eye contact with me (dammit, I hated it when people did that). "Were you on TV, maybe on the news or something?"

"No." I handed him the money and we left without looking back.

* * *

Classes went on the next day, they were what seemed to pass for normal in the Assassination Classroom. Uncle Karma continued his assassination attempts on Koro-sensei, and got humiliated every time. Fancy nail polish here, a cute apron there. And now he was wearing cat ears. Amidst the class's muffled giggles, I turned back to my notebook. Page one was a list of who was still in the class today, and who of the family was still in that abandoned house downtown. So far, only Okajima, Mimura, Kimura, and Hikaru had disappeared.

A _whoosh_ could be heard as Karma lunged towards Koro-sensei with one of those knives. And a bounce as Koro-sensei dodged it and in the same nanosecond used his tentacles to catch him from falling face-first on the ground.

I wanted to meet him in this timeline. He was my uncle, my favorite uncle (though I wouldn't tell the rest of the family that). But he wasn't approachable like this.

But I had to try right? So I caught him after class.

"Unc-" Er, what do I call him? "Karma-kun?"

Either he didn't hear me or was ignoring me, because he didn't respond.

My father tapped my shoulder. "Fujihara, I'd advise against talking to Karma right now."

"Huh?"

"He pushes people away. He just…" Dad trailed off. "… He won't be happy to talk to you. It's a shame, but I wouldn't recommend it"

I suspected that was the case. What would I tell Madoka and Hikaru when they came here? Hopefully he'd want to see his _kids_ … but after all, he didn't know. And still yet, where was Hikaru?

"Oh… Okay." A breath. "Nagisa?"

"Yes?"

"I heard you're taking notes on Koro-sensei's weaknesses. Can I have a look?"

"Sure." He smiled.

The notebook was full of things that seemed mundane to me.

 _Koro-sensei's Weakness #1. When he shows off, things get shaky._ What does that even mean?

"Um… I'm sure it will be of use." Sweatdrop.

"I hope. So, you and your sister, did you just move here or are you local?"

Huh? Oh yeah, he hadn't gotten the chance to get to know us in this timeline yet. "Local. And I must say, I've never seen pigtails like that until I came to Kunugigaoka."

"Oh, these?" He touched his pigtails, as if to affirm that they were still there. "Kayano gave them to me."

Oh, yes. I remember that story. That was another one I'd heard plenty of times. But I never knew why he had long hair in the first place. He said he didn't like it, but couldn't he cut it?

"That's sweet of her. But why?"

"She had her reasons. I wanted it cut, but there's reasons I can't right now."

My heart sunk. I should have known to mind my own business. As far as he knew, I was a stranger to him. I wanted to live in denial of that fact. Maybe he sensed that there was something special about us, like my mother did? I hoped.

"Ahh, I see."

Footsteps. Then two very familiar voices.

"Sis! We're going to the sweet shop, wanna join?" Hotaru was giggling with Mom.

"Sure." Wait, idea. I turned to my dad. "Do you want to join us, Nagisa?"

"If it's okay." He smiled. That was the same smile he had all my life. I remembered a picture of him holding me when I was a day old. And how he looked at me when I graduated elementary school. And how he looked at my mother on their wedding day (I was five and was one of the flower girls). I knew my dad's expressions so well, I was waiting for the 'are-you-kidding-me' one, hopefully that was the same.

We walked to the sweet shop towards the center of town. Mom and Hotaru chatted on, while I tried to engage my father.

"Nagisa, may I connect with you on Line?"

"Okay."

I scrolled through Dad's profile. His picture was of some weird comic book looking hero I'd never seen before.

"What's this?"

"… It's Sonic Ninja." He blushed, looking away.

"I've never heard of it. Is that a movie?" It wasn't a lie, I never had.

"It is. One of my favorites." He played with his pigtails. Now I had a google search term.

"So, what kind of movies do you like?"

Dammit, that question really caught me off guard! My mind blanked. I was going to ask him about his other hobbies or clubs, but now I had to think about movies? Crap crap crap. I had lots of favorite movies, but I don't think any of them would have been made at this point.

"Uhh…"

"Fujihara-san?" I wasn't sure how much time had passed; I was aware of my father poking my shoulder, of my sister waving her hands in front of my face.

"Aguri-chan?" It was my mother's voice that pulled me out of the fog that was suffocating me.

"Uh," I, stupidly, decided to say the first movie related thing that popped into my head. "I like anything with Haruna Mase!"

 _Aguri Shiota, or Fujihara, or whoever you are, you're a monumental fucking idiot._

"Ah, yes! Haruna-sama, she's quite impressive." Hotaru laughed awkwardly.

"I always liked her too." Dad brought his hand to the back of his head and chuckled.

"I guess so," It was clear to me that Mom wanted to change the subject. "Are you okay, Aguri-chan? Are you still sick?"

"Uh, yes, a little bit." I lied, yet again.

"I can recommend you a doctor, if you don't have one." The bell on the door of the sweet shop rang as we entered.

Great, another thing my sister and I didn't think about. We forged our identities, but there wouldn't be any medical or government records for us. Well, if we could forge records that would fool Gakuho Asano, we could fool anyone. That would be on our to-do list for the week.

My sister and mother seemed to immediately be drawn to the puddings, like a magnet. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I on the other hand stayed close to my father when he gravitated towards the cupcakes.

"I never took you for a sweets guy." I closely examined the French vanilla cupcake with double fudge icing.

"What gave you that idea?"

 _Because you were never very enthusiastic about them. You were always overjoyed to go to a sushi restaurant, but it seemed like you just sort of accompanied us to these places._ "I've only ever seen you eat rice and bread."

"Well," He cringed slightly. "I wish I could indulge myself more often, but it's not in the cards right now."

Come to think of it, there were a lot of things I didn't know about my father's teenage years either. I knew his parents were divorced, and I only saw my Grandma once or twice a year. My parents seemed to avoid discussing her at all. And my Grandpa… I met him once, and it was disappointing. My mother told us stories of how our father was 'such a good student' and 'really made Koro-sensei proud'. But what went on at his home? Was it okay for me to be a bit nosy?

"Sorry to hear." I selected my cupcake. "Do you want me to buy?"

"That's kind, but no. I can't accept it." He blushed a bit. I debated pushing it for a second, but then decided not to.

As I paid for my cupcake, Mom waved me down from a table in the back. I followed and joined her. My father followed right after.

"I think you'd like this, Kaede-chan." My sister skipped to the table and brought the pudding they'd share.

"Thanks, Hotaru-chan! How did you know Belgian chocolate was my favorite flavor?"

 _Because she used to run to the sweet shop down the corner and grab some when you were out of the house and couldn't stop her._ I twitched a bit thinking about it. _And when you got back, you wouldn't let her out of sight, because 'who knows what could have happened!'_

"I just guessed." Laughter.

It wasn't clear how long we were there, but Hotaru and I made the most of the time talking to our father. He told us what his favorite subject was (English), what his career aspirations were (unknown), what he would do with the reward money for killing Koro-sensei (find a way to grow taller). We may have not learned anything new, but just reaffirming everything we knew about our father was a comfort, knowing that we were not lied to.

Dad looked at his phone screen and cringed. "Sorry, I have to go home now."

"But we just got here," I protested weakly.

"Sorry Fujihara-san, my mother wants me home now." Wow, Grandma! Maybe I'd get to know her better in this timeline. "I hope this isn't about the last test."

Wait, my father looked like he was in _pain_.

I felt pain too, but for a different reason. Was it okay to ask him to call me Aguri? Would that seem like it was too fast?

I decided not to.

"Bye Nagisa, see you tomorrow."

"Thank you for today, Fujihara-san."

* * *

As we walked home, my phone buzzed with a post in the group chat.

 **Takahiro Aruta: I got into Kunugigaoka!**

Complete with a screenshot of his acceptance email. His class placement was 3-A. Of course it was, what else could you expect from that guy?

 **Satoru Chiba: Us too. Class 3-C. Should've studied more for that exam, but given the circumstances, I think it's excusable.**

 **Midori Chiba: It most definitely is.**

 **Liam Carmichael: Me and Jeffery's exam is next week. We're so nervous.**

 **Kintaro Sugino: Ours too. Wanna study together?**

 **Madoka Akabane: Me too.**

"Aguri-chan, you must be really interested in something online." Mom's voice brought me back to sanity.

"Oh? No, just an old friend." That same familiar guilt clawed at my guts, though I wasn't even lying this time.

* * *

I was shocked at the amount of time it took the Chibas to get into E-Class. It was one day, then they both posted in the group chat of their victories.

 **Satoru Chiba: Did you hear about how all the fourth-floor bathrooms were flooded?**

 **Hotaru Shiota: No, but I can guess where this is going…**

 **Midori Chiba: That was us.**

 **Takahiro Aruta: I never thought I'd say this in response to destroying school property, but… good job.**

 **Satoru Chiba: It's amazing how easy it is to remove a sink from the wall. And what happens afterwards.**

 **Takahiro Aruta: I'm still working on it.**

 **Jeffery Carmichael: Dude, I'll do something stupid and frame you if you need help.**

 **Kinoko Aruta: He needs help.**

 **Madoka Akabane: Still no one has seen Hikaru?**

* * *

The Chibas stood in front of the class the next Monday.

"Satoru and Midori Akamine, pleased to meet all of you."

They went by the name of the woman who babysat them as kids.

"Another set of twins?" Maehara asked, his gaze honing in on Midori.

"We're cousins." Midori pulled that one out of thin air. They sat in the back, as 'transfer students'. A few seats had been moved up, due to our disappearance epidemic.

Hayami snuck glances at both of them all day. I felt bad for her, like I do my parents. These mysterious kids who look like you and your crush show up and act weird toward you, it's got to throw off your whole identity for a while. Maybe the thought even crossed their minds, but it was surely waved away within ten seconds. Who would seriously believe that their kids from the future would join their class?

Satoru sat in the back. He seemed to be making friends with Isogai and Takebayashi. He seemed to avoid his Dad, he probably didn't know what to say to him. They finally made eye contact.

"Uh, yo." Satoru waved.

"Yo."

Hayami just stared, obviously unnerved.

The day ended quickly. I noticed Chiba walking towards Hayami as everyone was leaving.

While I thought nothing of it, my sister overheard them and told of the exchange they had.

 _Hayami, is anything wrong?_

 _No, I just feel off._

 _Me too._

* * *

"That was a disappointment." Satoru sat on the couch. "It was nice to talk to those guys, but I really wanted to talk to my folks."

"You didn't try." Midori was filing her nails (one of the seemingly nine million things she brought from the future in her purse was a nail file). "To be fair, neither did I."

"What kind of things can I talk to my mother about?" He fell back into the couch, defeated. "What I've heard seems to be correct: she was an ice queen."

"Midori, Satoru, just be careful, okay?" I interrupted their conversation. "We have reasons to be concerned right now."

Takahiro and Kinoko walked into the room.

"We're making rice and red beans for dinner." Kinoko wiped her hands on her apron. "But I want to know, what do they have to be careful about?"

Takahiro grabbed her by the ear, earning a yelp. "You don't have to tell her anything, Aguri nee-san, she's a massive snoop."

"No, you guys should know this too if you drop into 3-E." I gestured for them to sit down.

"See, people have been disappearing from the classroom."

"What do you mean, disappearing?" Midori sat cross-legged, pushing her scarf out of the way.

"So far it's been Mimura and Okajima. One day they were there, the next day they just weren't. When I asked, no one seemed to know who they were."

"Hmm." Satoru hummed. "Is it an effect of us traveling back in time?"

"I don't know. Part of the mission of the … uh, year is to figure that out."

"Are you going to stay for dinner?" Liam was setting the table in the dining room.

"No, we have food at home. We should actually be getting home now."

Madoka skipped down from the upstairs. "I set up that shrine."

"What shrine?" I was pulling on my shoes.

"To St. Anthony. I suggested it." Liam leaned against the wall. "It's always worked for me."

* * *

It was time for mission number who-knows of this week.

That was what brought us to the main building at six p.m. on a Thursday. Classes were dismissed, most extra-curriculars had finished up for the day, but knowing the principal, he would probably still be there, laughing evilly or eating babies or whatever he did. Actually, he was probably just filing paperwork. All we had to do was get him out of his office, surely that was an herculean effort.

I scrolled through my phone. We were in the storage room, which was soundproof. Seriously, what was up with the Shiotas and storage rooms in schools? We heard our Dad's stories about the school he taught at, and the things he found in those. Hell, the principal probably wanted to spend the money to soundproof this room so he could let it be used for sketchy stuff. But anyway, we were sure we wouldn't be seen or heard in here. And it was not far from the principal's office.

My finger trembled. The number of the school was on the screen. Okay.

"Hello, you have reached Kunugigaoka Junior High. To inquire about admissions, press 1. To inquire about financial aid, press 2. For any other questions, press 3. If you know the extension of the person to whom you wish to speak, dial it now."

I dialed extension 666. The principal. I only know that because Kinoko somehow figured it out within the past five days she's been here. She also figured out that the footage on the security cameras expires every twenty-four hours, and it isn't pulled unless the staff suspects something fishy.

"Hello, Gakuho Asano, Principal of Kunugigaoka Junior High speaking."

At this moment, I prayed that I had actually inherited some of my Mom's acting talent. "Hello, this is samui-mizu ice delivery company. I'm here to make a delivery."

"Thank you for the information." I could hear him twirling the phone cord. "I'll have someone come down to pick it up."

"Actually, I need you to sign off on it." My heart beat at twice the normal pace.

"That doesn't sound right." It was snappy, we knew we were lying. Crap. "The guy who I'm sending should be able to do that."

"It a new company policy." I trying to do an impression of my friend Akihiro. I had successfully done so before for a prank (Uncle Karma was very proud when he heard about it, but I certainly never wanted to do another one again). "This is the only time you'll have to. After this anyone else can sign off on it."

"… Okay. Just this once." The way the principal talked, every word seemed like a threat. But the phone call ended.

 _Jeffery, don't fail us now._ He was waiting at the door, stalling for the real ice delivery guy to show up. Much to his disappointment, he wouldn't be attending 3-E because half of eighth-grade in the LA school system couldn't have possibly prepared him for the exam to enter ninth grade at Kunugigaoka. Especially considering he didn't really speak the language. But we were trying to enroll him in the seventh-grade after immersing him and his brother into Japan for a month. So long as he didn't drop into 3-E, the principal wouldn't linger on him or notice anything off.

We opened the door, quietly as possible, and tiptoed toward the office. As we got closer, we heard the principal's door opening (it sounded unlike any other), shoes scuffling, the door shutting, and locking.

Good thing we had anticipated this. I grabbed the bag of paperclips out of my skirt pocket, and got to work picking the lock. I didn't have much experience with this, but Kinoko spent the last night teaching me how to do this. She seems to be the expert.

It seemed to budge. Good, we didn't have that much time and I was worrying about this being a road block.

The door creaked again, and opened with a little push.

"Hotaru, watch the door. Make a noise or something if someone is coming."

"Okay." She was probably disappointed, even if this is the plan we had agreed on before. She pulled out her phone and pretending to be playing on it or whatever. Pretending to be the typical teenager.

I snuck in. I could barely see anything with how dark it was. Did the principal just have night vison? I got out my phone flashlight and went to the filing cabinet. If the principal had anything written down about this, it would be in permanent records. That thing was locked at all times.

I knew it would be in the filing cabinet. Uncle Karma had told me many times about the time he broke into this office to fill the permanent records with pictures of celebrities faces photoshopped over pickles.

I picked this lock again, this was harder to do and required the use of several paperclips. But it gave eventually. The file marked _3-E, 2015-2016 School Year_ in red kanji stood out to me. I flipped through it, utilizing my speed reading ability.

 _April 10th,_

 _The octopus known as Koro-sensei became the teacher of 3-E. I was not there to witness it, but according to that government agent (was his name Karasuma?) the students reacted in the way I imagined._

Okay. This was the one I wanted, but I went all the way to the back of the file.

 _April 28th,_

 _Those two transfer students. Cousins Satoru and Midori Akamine. Damn them, even the last three didn't make it into E Class this soon! It must be a record._

Geez, was this a permanent record or the principal's personal diary? But no mention at all of memory wiping or manipulation. For sure, the principal would mention that. In an earlier entry, he made a note to manipulate everyone at the next school assembly into thinking an E Class student got arrested for public intoxication.

Wait. Was this mind control working on _him_ too?

I flipped to the next section of the record, the section that would list everyone. No Mimura, no Okajima. My heart stopped.

I heard the door shut and lock and felt a soft _thud_.

"Hotaru, what are you doing in here?"

She held her hand over my mouth, slammed the cabinet door shut, and dragged me under the desk. A second later the door opened.

"… The government agent told me you're the new English teacher."

"I am." A sultry voice. I knew her. She died a few years ago, but I knew her. She babysat us a few times, and it usually ended with her feeding us cotton candy or telling us stories we were way too young to hear. "To discuss my payment-"

"The Japanese government will handle that." The principal didn't have a threatening voice this time. It was curt and cold, but no threats were carried. This was highly important, after all.

The _clack_ of Irina's heels could be heard against the hardwood floor. "When do I begin my job?"

"Next week. And don't be late, and don't bring those grunts you have outside the door."

"Aww," She disguised her disappointment with an air of playfulness. "They don't bite."

"I don't care. You don't need them."

She huffed. "Well, we'll see. In the meantime," Heels sliding across the red carpet. "I think we should get to know each other-"

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"No. The door is that way and your goons are waiting for you. If you need to contact me again, do so through Karasuma."

"What?" I could picture her face. "You wouldn't recognize a great woman if she-"

"Goodbye."

"But I-" that was all I heard as I had to assume 'Bitch-sensei' was pulled away by her goons.

The principal exhaled. "Well, thank goodness I don't have to deal with that crazy bitch again."

He walked towards his desk. As I was trying to prevent a heart attack, I heard him turn towards the filing cabinet.

"Huh. I thought I left this locked." His keys rattled, and he could be heard walking towards the door. "Good thing the door was locked."

The door opened and shut again, the _click_ of the locking mechanism was heard, and then radio silence.

"I heard them coming from outside." My sister assured me.

"That's good, so they won't check the footage before it expires in twenty-four hours." I breathed. "Now let's get the hell out of here, and there's one person who can help us with that." I sent a message on Line.

 **Uhh, Kinoko? We're going to need you to break into the principal's office and get us out of here.**

* * *

I studied that list multiple times a day. One could even say it was obsessively. Akabane (Uncle Karma), check. Isogai, check. All the way down to Yoshida. There were twenty-eight students now, including the four of us time travelers. All accounted for. All twenty-six students here. Sugaya and Muramatsu were never in this class right? Or was I just making people up now? Because I remembered them clear as day and they were in my written list, but they were nowhere to be found in the classroom. The Terasaka gang had only three people, and there were never any paintings in the back. None of that was normal, or maybe it was and I've just gone crazy.

"Class," Everyone's favorite yellow octopus stood at the podium. "We're getting a new English teacher on Monday!"

"Lots of new faces…" Karma muttered in the back, clearly suspicious.

Time to prepare for 'Bitch-sensei'.

My eyes scanned the room for another time traveler. My sister was looking at pictures Nakamura was showing her of the aftermath of some prank she pulled on Gakushuu Asano last Sunday. Satoru was talking to his mother and Yada, I could overhear that it was about jazz dancing. He definitely wasn't interested, but he clearly just wanted to talk to his mom. I had to distract Midori from the conversation she'd been having with her father for the past… It must have easily been the entire lunch period.

"Do you prefer Black Sabbath with Dio or Ozzy?"

"I never really thought about it, but Dio."

"Have you listened to this album?" Chiba scrolled through what must have been his phone's music library and showed Midori something.

I poked my 'cousin' (though I couldn't call her that here, I'd have another set of questions to lie my way out of). She turned to me, and thankfully Chiba was distracted with whatever spat was breaking out in the front of the room (one of the first things I learned in the Assassination Classroom; if people decide to bicker, they will be smart enough to have it be when Koro-sensei and Karasuma are not in the room)

"I'm glad to see you're getting along with your parents too, but we've got another crisis on our hands." I whispered.

"What?"

"There are twenty-eight students in this class, right? Or am I crazy?"

"You're not crazy, Satoru and I made twenty-eight."

"Look around and count."

She did. I could see the wheels in her head turning.

"Twenty-two, twenty-three… Where are…?" She brought her hand to her mouth.

"Sugaya and Muramatsu. I don't know, and I'm afraid to ask."

"Excuse me!" She poked Yoshida. "Where's your friend? The blonde one, with the big teeth."

"… Your imagination."

Midori stared at me in horror.

 _"What did I tell you?"_ I mouthed behind my English textbook.

* * *

 _June 20th, 2044._

"Did you hear? Someone downtown got hit by a car!" Chitose Mizushima burst into the living room and slammed the 'on' button on the TV, luckily for her it was already turned to the news channel.

" I did not." Her almost 14-year-old brother sat up on the floor. He had been staring at his phone screen debating how to assist his friends in their attempts to retrieve the phone that the mean old math teacher had taken from poor Asahi. All his friend was trying to do was contact his uncle in the hospital!

The newscaster droned on. "… The car accident happened at 3:11 this afternoon. The driver of the blue Honda claimed to be distracted by a bird, causing him to swerve into the telephone pole. All of downtown Shinjuku is still experiencing a power outage, but allegedly the driver is fine now."

"What a disappointment for the people of Shinjuku, but at least he's okay." Chitose sat down on the couch. The lizard crawled on her lap. Their mother had found it injured while leading one of her nature hikes years before they were born and it just sort of never left.

Based on the lack of responses, it was clear that Tarou's suggestions of 'flood the teacher's office with water so that his shoes will get soggy and he can't leave, so he'll have to face Asahi when to leaves after his club and he'll feel so ashamed he'll give the phone back' weren't going over too well. So he put his phone out of reach to avoid any further distractions and talked to his sister.

"So do you want to watch that new anime that aired last Wednesday?" He retrieved his soccer ball from the corner of the room and tossed it in the cellar, where the dogs wouldn't get it. None of the five of them, nor would the three cats. Even the parakeet didn't fly down there, and Tarou frequently found Polly in his _hamper_ of all places. On the occasions that Tarou or his sister deigned to go down there, there weren't even bugs to be found. It was like the cellar was cursed or something.

"The one about the blue-haired magician girl?"

"The last time I checked, there were 641 of those. I mean the one that Takahiro recommended."

"Oh, that one. Yeah, get your computer and load it up."

Tarou started his computer up. Last time he checked, it had enough malware to choke a horse, but he'd take it to his friend who was good with computers to take care of that. The last time he tried to remove it himself he wound up installing more malware.

Eh, it was working fine today. Hopefully it would hold out for the seven-page research paper that was due in two days (he hadn't started it yet).

"Can you get us snacks?" He asked Chitose. He was thinking of those cookies that his family always bought in bulk.

"Last time Mom and Dad went shopping, they said the put them in the cellar."

His stomach dropped. "Okay, I guess I'll go get it-"

"It's fine, I'll get it." His sister stood up. She threw her phone in the couch cushions. She had been ignoring the "courting" that she was subject to by Watanabe… and Yamahara… and Shimomura… "Hey baby, you're so hot that I forgot my pickup line" with the heart-eyes emoji was getting _really_ old. Not even sixteen yet and already jaded about romance…

"No, I'll get it. I insist." She could consider it payment for the time she took the fall for when he accidentally let the dogs run around the neighborhood.

"Fine." She sat back down for a second, but ultimately decided to follow him.

They walked by something new. The bird cage didn't hold Polly the parakeet, but instead a big black crow. Or was it a raven? Did it _eat_ Polly?

"Chitose-chan, when did we get that?"

"…We didn't." He heard her gulp. "But I don't think I want to go in the cellar anymore. I'm sure you'll agree."

"I do." The cookies could wait. "Now let's get back to the living room and watch that damn anime."

 _Caw!_

Tarou felt a hand roughly grab his collar as Chitose pulled him away as she ran. She didn't know where she was going, but anywhere away from that damn bird would suffice.

The _caws_ were now in his ear, echoing in his brain. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he regretted the fact that he didn't write a will.

Call the Mizushima siblings crazy, but it felt like a hand- dark and shadowy, for sure- pulled them into the cellar. Darkness enveloped them, and all sounds ceased to be.

* * *

 _October 22, 2044._

Kaito Suzuki shut his friend's laptop. He was done 'repairing' it (his friend could have easily fixed the problem with a little bit of googling), he would be 4,000 yen richer tomorrow for his help.

Kaito's mother rolled her eyes, looking up from her phone. "Your father's not going to be able to see you tonight."

"Huh?"

"Your sperm donor." He won't be coming. Hinata Suzuki (though once the divorce papers finally went through she'd be Hinata Okano once again) got up and stretched her legs. "According to his social media, he's too busy getting wasted in his apartment that he can't afford. At the age of forty-six."

"Okay. I'll just be in my room. Do you want help with dinner?"

"Don't worry about it. We'll probably just order something. I have to go train someone at seven."

Honestly, Kaito didn't really want to see his father either. His visits would usually end with Daddy getting a bottle of scotch out of his liquor cabinet and turning into an asshole thirty minutes later (when the bottle was empty). Or daddy going into the bathroom to consume who-knows-what drug and come out acting like an asshole. And the last time Kaito saw on his father's social media that he had been drinking before their court-scheduled visitation time, he was so inebriated when Kaito got to the door that he threw a lamp at him from the window, screaming about how the elves that lived in the trees were poisoning his breakfast every morning.

No, Kaito would much rather stay at home. There was probably something interesting on one of the billion websites out there. Or play a video game. Or find his friends and go stand huddle around nearest Lawson and say it's their 'turf' (but run from the school bullies when they show up). Or really, he'd rather do just about anything than see his Dad.

He wanted to talk to Madoka Akabane right now. Truthfully, he had trouble relating even to his 'extended family', meaning his mother's old classmates. They were good people, sure, but he didn't get a lot of time to see them. He moved to Nagoya in the seventh grade, because his father found work. And that was all for naught, he got fired due to showing up drunk every day, and now here Kaito and his mom were.

Separated by 350 kilometers, he had few opportunities to talk to any of them, outside of social media. And what can you really say using only a screen? He felt like there was a real-life firewall that prevented him from developing relationships with them, no matter how much he wanted it.

But a few of them he could talk to. Madoka Akabane was one such person. They usually bonded over how terrible their bio dads were, but sometimes topics of conversation branched out to school and sports.

He went on to her Line and tried to message her.

 **Hey Akabane-san, you'll never guess what my dad just did. Actually, you probably can, because it's the only thing he's been doing consistently for the past year.**

He attempted to send the message, but it bounced. Then it disappeared from the screen.

"Stupid Docomo, it never works in the house."

He tried connecting to the house's wifi, but the message disappeared again.

"Dammit."

He tried opening the phone's browser and searching the web as a test, but all he was getting was _404 error_.

None of his apps were loading either. And he tried to send a text to his Mom as a test, but it too bounced.

Suddenly, a _ding_.

But not from his phone. No, the ding was outside. And it actually wasn't a ding at all. It was the cawing of crows, crows that Kaito never payed much mind to or even notice until now. They reverberated in his brain, but he could not see them.

Just as Kaito was beginning to question his sanity, he blacked out.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 **1\. St. Anthony: The Catholic patron saint of missing things/people.**

 **2\. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge, but there's a way you can call people but disguise the number so it shows up with no caller ID, or to trick caller ID into thinking it's some other number. I don't know anything about it, but it's commonly abused for prank calling and those scam calls about how the IRS is totally after your ass and "needs your social security number". *Eyeroll***

 **3\. School (especially middle/high school) in Japan is waaayyy more demanding than in the US.**

 **4\. Docomo: A popular mobile phone carrier in Japan.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay. FFN is extremely buggy as of the past month. I hear some people saying that stories/authors are disappearing from their favorites list, that reviews aren't showing up, etc. So here's to hoping this chapter actually goes through.**

 **Fun fact, I drove by a Megu Sushi in Sea Isle City. Just thought that might be amusing to some people.  
**

 **This chapter follows the anime's timeline, in which Irina is introduced before Okuda's assassination attempt (in the manga it's the other way around).**

 **Please enjoy and review. This chapter seems like it has a bit much going on, but I'll let all you be the judge of that.  
**

* * *

Takahiro Aruta got up in the morning and stretched. Today was the day he was going to pull off that big prank, guided by Jeffery Carmichael, and land himself in 3-E. He had never let frogs loose in a school before. But he was ready for this, even his alarm clock seemed to be cheering him on.

Wait, _alarm clock_!? He hadn't had one of those since he was ten!

In fact, this room was completely foreign to him. The walls were green, he was used to white walls. The bed was pushed up against the wall that was stage left. And he didn't recognize that closet, these bedsheets, or _anything_.

He shot up and ran out of the room. This whole house was nothing like the abandoned house he was staying in, and nothing like his own home in Osaka. He had never seen this living room before, or this kitchen. What kind of bathroom had a mirror on the opposite side as the sink!?

"Takahiro!" An adult man's voice called out from the bedroom. "What are you doin' running around at this time of day?"

He couldn't say anything. Who was that man?

The door opened to reveal an older man and woman in pajamas. They looked at him sternly.

"We know you're a teenager, but I think you're acting a bit overenthusiastic about… Whatever it is. You maybe our son, but we can't tolerate this happening too often."

 _Son!?_ Just where was he?

He ran outside to look at the nameplate on the house. He was in the Okajima household. Was this a dream!?

Running back into the house, he grabbed his phone off the bedside table. He wanted the advice of only one person about this catastrophe.

* * *

I woke up that morning to my phone buzzing and ringing nonstop.

Groggily (I was having a nice dream in which Koro-sensei and Auntie lived), I sat up and answered the phone.

"-guri? Aguri nee-san!" It was Takahiro's voice. He was normally calm and level-headed, what was up now?

"Are you getting murdered or something? It's six in the morning!"

"Uh, no. But I have no clue how this happened."

I got out of bed and walked outside, hoping my mother didn't overhear me, grabbing my hairbrush on the way out. "Well, don't leave me hanging."

"I woke up this morning in Okajima's house."

I dropped my hairbrush. "Pardon?"

"Yes, you heard that correctly. I woke up in his room this morning. I know because of the nameplate. His parents- or at least, I assume they're his parents- are referring to me as their son. He's nowhere to be found, in case you were wondering about that."

"Err, sorry about the moodiness, I was having a really nice dream." I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. "Is Kinoko there?"

I heard footsteps through the phone, then a sigh of relief. "Yes. She's in the bedroom down the hall from me."

"Good." I put my socks on.

"What happened? What do we do?" Takahiro was back in panic mode.

"You two should just go to school. Hotaru and I will meet up with all you guys after class and we can discuss theories to our heart's content."

"Good idea." I could practically hear his heart pounding through the phone. "I dunno how we'll keep ourselves composed. I just- ugh!" That _thwack_ sound must have been him facepalming or something.

"Take a deep breath, okay? We'll figure this shit out." Really, I had no assurance whatsoever about this. But I couldn't let any of them, least of all Takahiro, know that. I was the oldest of the E Class children, so for some reason they all seemed to defer to my advice. But the reality was, if Takahiro didn't have his shit together, there was no hope for the rest of us. "Just try to act normal."

"Okay. I was excited to see my Mom today, but this morning just killed any emotions I had beyond pure _what-the-fuck_. Thanks for your advice, Aguri nee-san. You're the most dependable person I know."

I blushed. "That's flattering, because _you're_ the most dependable person _I_ know."

* * *

As if that wasn't strange enough, today got even weirder. I didn't think that was even possible at this point, but the universe had made it a hobby of proving me wrong.

Takahiro strolled into the class that morning, a sweaty and flustered mess.

"Yo! Aruta-san!" Isogai waved to him enthusiastically. "Did you catch last night's soccer game?"

"Huh?"

Isogai ran up to him. "Yeah, I didn't see you there. But I went to watch my little brother play, it was so intense! Did you hear about what happened in the last 90 seconds of the game?"

Our beloved class rep deserved some kind of award for his obliviousness here. He went on and on about the game, but Takahiro's face expressed pure horror. The sweat on his brow was reflective, his hands stimmed about.

Midori appeared next to me and whispered in my ear. _"I didn't see him get up this morning. Did he leave early?"_

I turned towards her. _"No, the reality is far stranger. I'll tell you later."_

My cousin grabbed my hand in hers and squeezed, interlocking her fingers in mine. Even someone as self-assured as Midori didn't know what to say about these developments. We watched the unfolding event side by side, she seemed like she was about to have a panic attack.

Hara stood up and was at Takahiro's side in a flash. "I think Takahiro's sick, Yuuma. It explains why he wasn't at that game last night."

"Oh. Sorry I was so talkative today." He frowned, his hair antennae drooped. "Do you want me to walk you to the school's infirmary?"

"If anyone brings him, it'll be me." Kataoka's voice was heard for the first time that day. She was surprisingly silent today, until right now. "I am the class rep, after all."

She too walked up to her son (though she had no clue about that) and felt his forehead. "Do you want to go to the infirmary, Hiro-san?" A nickname?

"Na, thanks Ma- Kataoka-san." Takahiro started handling this well, finally. "It's just a cold."

I turned my attention to Midori. She seemed in a trance. I had that feeling myself a lot, at least since the time-travel event. "Midori-chan, snap out of it." I took my hand out of hers and waved it in front of her.

When I got no response, I clapped in front of her face. That was something I learned from Dad. I didn't learn it for these purposes, but it was worth a try.

She shuddered like a lightning bolt went through her. But the glazed look in her eyes went away.

"Thanks onee-san, I needed that."

Hotaru looked over at the Terasaka gang, as if listening in on their conversation. Were they suspicious of us?

* * *

'Bitch-sensei' made her grand appearance the next day. Wow, if I had one sentence to describe her, it would be that she never grew up from now until my memory of her. From deep-kissing my father (something my sister, mother, and I were not thrilled with) to trying to seduce Koro-sensei to talking to us like we were idiots.

I tried to talk to talk to her after school. Maybe I could get to her. "Iri- er, Miss Hellabitch, what are you-"

"Brat." She huffed. "You look like a fourth-grader. What are you doing, pretending to play assassin?"

But really, I did love her for who she was. The good times we had with her as a child were in my mind forever. So I figured I'd just wait for her to do her thing- try to assassinate Koro-sensei, calls us all shitty brats, and ask us to recite the dirty pickup lines that she used to seduce her targets.

The next day, things seemed okay with her. So I tried communicating with her again.

"Bitch-sensei, will you tell me about how you prevented a second Gulf War by seducing an Arab sheik?"

"No way, that story's not for kids. Wait, how do you know about that…"

Lying time again. I had this one planned out. "Those government agents told me." After all, she wouldn't talk to them anytime soon.

"Those bastards."

* * *

Madoka passed the transfer exam with flying colors. Class 3-A. That was another given.

I figured she would need Jeffery or someone to do something stupid and frame her for it. But she really shocked me this time.

"I'm now officially in E Class!" She announced when she walked into the house that night.

"Wow, and I thought it was quick when I we did." Midori looked up from her homework. "How?"

"I punched Koyama in the face. He went on and on about how awful E Class was and how they deserved to suffer. I told him to shut up, he said 'make me', so I did." He gingerly placed her shoes on the rack, an action very juxtaposed with what she was saying.

"Your Dad will be proud. I just hope you didn't do any damage, he's ugly enough as it is." Midori smiled.

"Midori, don't be mean. It's not his fault he looks like that." Satoru scolded her. She snorted.

A sheet of paper was suspended on the fridge, held in place by a magnet. We had started listing the unsolved mysteries of this little experience.

Takahiro wrote down 'Why my sister and I are called by our real names when we live with the Okajimas' and 'Why did we wake up in Okajima's house and why do his parents think we're their kids' right under 'Why are our parents acting weird about us, do they sense something's amiss' and 'Where the hell is Hikaru, I'm getting impatient'.

Madoka entered 3-E the next day. She was Madoka Nakajima, as far as they knew. The confidence she exerted yesterday was gone. She was stuttering, flustered, and blushing. That was how she always was. I guess it was foolish of me to expect anything different. Yesterday was a rarity, not the beginning of a new era.

She sat in the appropriate seat in the back, I really needed to add this new seating arrangement to my notes. All the time travelers doted on her at lunch. She didn't have the confidence to talk to talk to anyone else.

"These are your family." I whispered in her ear.

She nodded. "Yeah, but…"

Maehara, who at some point had apparently moved on the windowsill near us, interrupted our talk. "How are all these cute girls dropping into E Class?" Madoka blushed and hid her face in her hands. Kataoka just gave him The Look.

"Maehara, resist the urge to be yourself. This is the fourth new girl you've made uncomfortable."

He whimpered and sat back down in his seat.

"I want to talk to my parents." She said to us. Apparently, it was loud enough for everyone else to hear.

"You can use your phone during lunchtime. Koro-sensei isn't even here." Isogai tried to be helpful. He was anther one whose personality never seemed to change.

"Thanks, Isogai."

As the day went on, our groupchat exploded. I snuck peeks, until I finally caved and responded.

 **Madoka Akabane:** **Have you all been interacting you your parents?**

 **Hotaru Shiota: A lot. Naturally, considering Aguri and I live with our mom.**

 **Satoru Chiba: Yes, but it's not easy.**

 **Kinoko Aruta: I'd kill to talk to my mom, but I'm stuck in Class 2-B. Can that be arranged, actually?**

 **Aguri Shiota: Sure, give me time to work some magic.**

 **Madoka Akabane: I don't know how to talk to mine…**

 **Aguri Shiota: Based on what I've observed over the past month, I'd recommend talking to Okuda, but not Karma. She's just shy and may open up to someone who approaches her first. But Karma is still outright hostile at this point. He doesn't have any interest in talking to any of the 'new kids' and is always picking fights with Terasaka.**

But against our better judgement, she took a leap of faith and talked to Karma as we were leaving.

"Hello." She trembled. She didn't look him in the eye.

"Hiya there, Nakajima." He actually remembered her (alleged) name? "How was your first day?"

"It's going fine."

"So I heard you punched that 'chosen one' Koyama in the face." He was sure to add airquotes around 'chosen one' and say it in a the most mocking tone possible.

Blush. "H-how did you hear that?"

"When I skipped class today I walked through the main building. Those two idiots from D Class, the ugly ones, they wouldn't shut up about 'that scary 153 centimeter tall bitch with the gray braids who they sent down to E Class today' and how she 'dared to defy her superiors'. The whole of A Class is apparently up in arms about it." He threw his head back and laughed sardonically. "What a bunch of losers. Serves them right."

"Yeah… That was me."

"Good going. I never got the chance to stick it to him, I mostly bother with Asano." He picked up his bag and stuffed the 'I am an idiot' sticker sheet into it (he must have planned on using it on Terasaka). "So, do you have any intel on Koro-sensei?"

"Well, you see-" Was she going to give away Koro-sensei's biggest weakness? I honestly kind of hoped not. I figured we'd find a way to save Koro-sensei, guided by our knowledge from the future.

I twitched. Did this happen before? This made me think of something my father had told me. But I couldn't place a finger on it.

Alas, that topic was cut short. "Ah! Aguri, Hotaru!" Mom waved at us, her smile melting our hearts.

"Kayano-chan, I'll make dinner tonight." I still had to consciously reject the urge to call her Mom, I doubt that would ever end. But my tongue didn't reject the name anymore. It did at least seem like a real name, just not my Mom's.

"That's great. Let's all walk home together," Hotaru suggested.

"Okay." It was Karma who agreed first, much to our shock.

Madoka and Mom just nodded. We took off, it seemed like we all lived in the same direction.

"Okuda," Madoka twiddled her thumbs. It was clear she was struggling to come up with topics of conversation. "… So I noticed you seem to like science class a lot."

"I do." She played with her braids. "And I noticed you have the same hairstyle as me."

"Oh. I don't always do it this way. Sometimes I just let it lay flat." Madoka brought her own braids in front of her shoulders.

"I tried doing that, but it's a pain to have to pull up before chemistry."

"I just sort of deal with it. And I like chemistry too. Have you ever tried mixing…"

I didn't understand the weird scientific terms they started using after that. But they seemed to be getting along famously. I caught Hotaru's eye, who certainly looked proud. _She planned this._

"Aguri-chan, Hotaru-chan," My mother started talking to us. "Have you thought about the groups for the Kyoto trip?"

Oh, that was coming up. "Not quite yet." Honestly, I hadn't given it any thought at all. I actually forgot that it was happening. Dammit, this was just another thing I had to think about.

"Hmm." Her phone was open in her hand as she chatted with us. Naturally, as it was getting dark out and the screen was bright, my eyes were attracted to it. Okay, maybe I was being a bit of a snoop.

The calendar app was open, the day May 10th was highlighted.

 _Why May 10th?_ I couldn't think of anything important about that day.

* * *

And it looked like Madoka couldn't have picked a better time to drop in. It was now the day that Okuda poisoned Koro-sensei. And she was even with the same group!

Madoka's eyes widened, this was a moment she had been hearing about for all of her life.

As Koro-sensei's head turned into emojis, we couldn't help but laugh. Only because we knew the outcome (this was what technically 'killed' Koro-sensei, and it was from Okuda of all people), and because we'd heard this story so many times. But seeing it in person was very different.

Okano and Takebayashi gave us a shocked look. That only made us laugh harder.

Hotaru told us later of what she overheard them saying.

 _"What's so funny about this?"_

 _"I don't know, maybe the new kids have a different sense of humor." Glasses adjusted. "But yes, it seems like they share some secret we're not in on."_

* * *

The Carmichael's entrance exam was coming up soon. I'd never seen a prankster look so nervous. Well, aside from when Karma was pacing around our living room waiting to see if he got that bill passed.

"It'll be okay, Liam." Satoru patted his shoulder. "You speak Japanese really well. This will be like nothing."

"But I don't know for sure. I just learned how to say complex sentences."

"Wait." Jeff stood up. He looked serious for once in his fourteen years of life. "I have an idea that will get us into Kunugigaoka for sure, if this doesn't work."

"Really? This isn't another one of your stupid pranks?" Liam looked up from the textbooks, Satoru's hand still on his shoulder.

"It's not a prank."

"But you didn't deny it being stupid."

I wanted to bring up the 'save Koro-sensei' idea. But that would be too much for right now. So I kept my mouth shut.

* * *

We had another repeat of the Aruta Family Incident the very next day. The Suginos woke up the next morning and called me crying about how they were in the Mimura household.

"There's not much to do but to go to school." I advised him while putting my skirt on. "Try to be subtle."

The phone call ended not too long after that, and I went into the kitchen to start the toaster. Hotaru was frying eggs, she always did like to get up early. Even when we were elementary schoolers, she would be the first at the breakfast table when our parents were still rubbing their eyes and yawning.

I noticed once again that May 10th was circled in red on the calendar. Something special about that date. "Sis? Did you see this?"

Hotaru was none the wiser. Absorbed in cooking (that was another personality trait of hers), she was bouncing a bit, singing the lullaby Mom sung to us as babies.

My mother's footsteps (light as a feather, you would have thought it was just a mouse walking around) entered the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her. She froze in the doorway. She had that thousand-yard stare, one that I saw her wear a lot.

Hotaru took the cue to shut up and rushed to her. I joined her, fussing over Mama.

"Kayano-chan? Are you sick? Did you catch what I had?" Er, what I allegedly had. "Mom?"

She finally snapped out of it, tears in the corners of her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Kaede-chan!" Hotaru hugged her. "Did I upset you with that song?"

"No. Not at all. It's just that my mother always sang that to me." She wistfully looked at the tenth-story window, where a shrine to Grandma stood.

 _Ah._ So that's where it came from. And neither of us dared to say anything more about that topic, we knew that it would only give her more tears. So we sat down to breakfast, said _itadakimasu_ , and dug in. But I wanted to get answers for that one other thing.

"Kayano-chan?"

"Hm?" Her mouth was covered in sticky rice.

"Is there anything coming up? Any events or celebrations, like maybe birthdays?"

Mom's gaze dropped to her feet. There was a few seconds of dead silence, and I regretted asking that question, only giving her more pain after what her other daughter subjected her to.

"… No. I can't think of any."

* * *

It was just like with Takahiro. The class totally recognized him and greeted him with the same warmth of an old friend. His father seemed to immediately be his best friend.

And when Koro-sensei called out the name Kintaro Ebisu during roll call, he knew to respond.

"Wow, you know the universe hates you when you're named after a freaking beer." He threw his hands up and brought them back down to the dinner table that evening.

Nobuhiko was setting the table tonight. "Cheer up, Onii-chan. You met Koro-sensei. I wish I could be in your place."

"Did you have the same type of first day that I did?"

"Yes. I was called Ebisu too and everyone seemed to know and welcome me. When can I meet Koro-sensei?"

"I don't know, when we can arrange for it." I was getting anxious. I still had no idea why _any_ of this was happening. That was when I had the first inkling that there might be something supernatural about it all.

"Hotaru and I are going home now." I was beginning to get a migraine. All I wanted now was to lie in bed, my mother's embrace, and homemade rice porridge. Speaking of my mother, I made a mental note to ask her to bring us to whatever shrine or temple she visited. Maybe that would help, especially if the problem was supernatural.

"You are? Dinner is almost ready." Kinoko walked out of the kitchen, the yellow apron too big on her.

"We're not going to eat your food that you bought with your limited funds." I rubbed my temples, which were throbbing.

"Yeah, the funds really are drying up. Maybe we should take up stripping." Nobuhiko giggled.

I shot him a humorless glance as we walked out the door. "I think you've been spending too much time with Jeffery."

* * *

The Mizushima siblings woke up to a pitch-dark room. Were they in the cellar?

"What the hell pulled us down here?" Chitose sat up, pushing against the invisible force that held her down.

"Beats me. A monster?" Her little brother stretched his arms. "Let's explore it."

After looking around, it was clear that they were not, in fact, in their cellar. The floor was wooden planks, rather than the cold concrete they remembered. And there were no stairs, no bags of food. They couldn't hear the dogs running around upstairs. They weren't even in their own house anymore. This place did seem vaguely familiar, though. They had been here before, surely. But they couldn't place a finger on it.

Some rustling noises. As the Mizushimas were ready to fight against whatever it was, another voice echoed in the dark. "Are you who I think you are?"

"Er, probably, we're Chitose and Tarou. Hi Kaito."

"Hi. Let's find a door in this place." They couldn't see it, but Kaito struggled to get up.

Another round of searching guided only by phone lights brought up the door handle. But it was locked. No amount of pushing, pulling, or slamming would coax it open.

"I guess we're stuck waiting until someone comes here." Tarou slumped down on the ground. "And I still don't know where we are."

"I think we're, to use the legal term, shit out of luck."

* * *

 _April 28, 2045._

Classes had gotten out hours ago. The sun was just beginning to set, the orange lights in the windows made Minami Minnaoka nostalgic. The sunset always seemed so magical as a child. _Everything_ seems magical as a child. Well, except for when your parents fought. But everything else. Sunsets, hot chocolate, stories about the Assassination Classroom. Those most of all.

Kaguya Yoshida sat in the desk next to the window. She opened up her Line, searching for updates on anyone. Once she finally managed to get something to load, she was met with disappointment. All of her friends had been quiet recently. It must have been the school year picking up.

Well, their friends did go to Maple Woods Junior High, renowned for it's rigorous academics. The two of them had the opportunity to go, but who wanted to go there, knowing that Gakuho Asano was in charge? They were also accepted to Kunugigaoka, but they didn't want to go to there for reasons that they felt should have been obvious. So they settled for a small, lesser known Junior High school that they had to take a train all the way to Yokohama to get to. This place was also infamous for letting students run wild, to boot.

"So. Time to do this stupid report." Minami sat down next to her, staring at the textbook that was spread out in front of them with a sour face. Loose-leaf paper and rulers were scattered around them haphazardly.

"Do we really have to?" Kaguya wasn't paying much attention. There wasn't anything new with any of their friends. Their cousins were strangely quiet too.

"Unfortunately, yes. Think of it this way, we get done with this class and we'll never have to care about the Russian Revolution ever again."

"Why do I have to _now_? Not like I use any of this. What are the chances I'll ever come within ten feet of Russia?"

"You never know." Minami counted her pens, making sure that her seat neighbor didn't decide to prank her by stealing any of them (because the teacher would care if he did). It seemed he didn't do that this time, but he swiped her gross old eraser.

"Okay, you're right. Maybe when we win the lottery we'll take a vacation there. But what are the chances I'll ever time travel?"

"You got me there."

They may have lived on opposite sides of Tokyo now, but they were still the best of friends. Kaguya understood her sullen, and at certain times dark attitude when it made everyone else run. And their classmates seemed to find Kaguya's wit biting and even caustic, Minami found it comforting that she had a friend who would always be there to make the worst situations funny.

Her mother was good friends with Kaguya's father while they attended Kunugigaoka. That school again, they just kept hearing about it from everyone. Killing a Mach 20 octopus sounded fun, they wished they had assignments like that in school.

But no. Another year of Find The Interquartile Range Of This Meaningless Data Set That You'll Never Use In Your Life commenced earlier this month, and with it the two girls' souls were crushed.

Minami couldn't take her mind off of Kunugigaoka. "Do you regret not going there?" Her friend would know where 'there' was. Minami distracted herself by playing with her hair. She never liked how dark it was, she was considering going blonde. That would make her like her aunt, the one who lived in LA.

"Huh? Hell no!"

"The more and more I think about it, I kind of do." Minami frowned. "I want the same experiences _they_ had. Maybe we'd learn something special, something that this crappy school can't teach us."

"But Koro-sensei's dead and the E Class system doesn't exist anymore. It would just be like here, except with a stricter administration. I wouldn't be able to get away with all the things I say to mess with people."

"Yes, you _are_ The Queen, according to Midori-chan."

"I guess I am, if that's what people say." Sigh.

Pouring over this textbook was draining. Soon they both yawned and were on the verge of falling asleep.

Minami felt something land on her head. Something with sharp claws that dug into her scalp. It jolted her awake.

 _Caw._

"Kaguya, what the hell is this thing!" She swung her arm above her and hit whatever it was, but had no clue what it was until it decided to land on her arm.

A big crow. It stared her in the eyes, as if challenging her. _To what?_

"Get it off of me!"

Her best friend grabbed the binder and swung it at the bird. The bird flew out of the way and the binder hit the chalkboard, causing it to crack.

 _Caw!_ It attacked her! Wait, where did this thing even come from? There were no open windows, and the door had been shut for the past hour. Was it hiding in the room this whole time? _Am I going crazy? Birds don't teleport!_

"Crap, now we gotta pay to replace that!" But that ceased to be a concern of Kaguya's when the bird attacked her too.

The fading sunlight blinded them, as if the sun decided to rise back up over the horizon and assault their senses. After that was like an out-of-body experience.

* * *

 **AN:**

 **1\. Holding hands can be an expression of friendship/platonic affection in Japan. I think. Correct me if I'm wrong.  
**

 **2\. I'd like to be informed of plot holes, if you notice any of them popping up. Time travel stories are especially prone to them. I keep notes, but some things might fall through the cracks.  
**

 **Thank you for your support, please review, and I'll see you in the next chapter.**


	8. Chapter 8

**I'm back at college for the semester (last year, so sad). In other news, my new computer sucks. I tried everything- reinstalling Windows, calling the manufacturer, running every diagnostics test in the book, updating the drivers and BIOS, and it's still a massive POS. I can't afford to buy a new one. So I'm not too pleased with my life right about now.**

 **I was thinking of bumping the rating up to M, or at least editing the summary to warn about the very liberal usage of profanity. Eh, I'm from New Jersey, that's my excuse.**

 **I also found Karma and Rio soaps at the New York Renaissance Faire. Yes, of course I bought them. One of my brotps.**

 **Repsonse to Patrickstarspongy: Ah no, sentimentality is fine. As for the inconsistencies, they're just mistakes and not anomalies or paradoxes. I will go back and fix them before I publish the next chapter. To everyone else reading this, you won't have to go back and re-read those chapters, the changes will be inconsequential and made clear in future chapters. Thanks for noticing, and I'll take better notes in the future.**

 **AN: Ema: Small wooden plaques that are available at shrines/temples throughout Japan. You can write a wish or request or memory on one of them, hang it up, and the Kami are supposed to see it.**

 **Thanks for all faves, follows, and reviews.**

* * *

"Kaede-chan? Is there a shrine around here?" I asked my Mom after class let out. "Or a temple?"

"Yep. There's a temple near the train station." She pulled a paper fan out of her bag and fanned herself gently. The walk would definitely make the heat worse.

"The heat is getting unbearable." Hotaru panted, and Mom fanned her too. She always used to do that to us, on our birthday parties in the dead of the summer.

"Yes, my pudding is melting." She visibly became more and more irritated with each word, the flapping of the fan turning staccato and erratic. The fan ripped right down the middle.

"Oh well." Mom put it back into her bag. "I bought it at the 300 yen store, so I didn't expect much. Anyway, would you like to go there today?"

"Sure!"

The shrine was adorned with blood-red gates. Bells everywhere. It must have been one of those combination shrine-temples that used to be everywhere. Actually, I think that we had been here before, as small children. I remember Mom crying in front of the altar, begging something of our ancestors. But what was it again? We never did come back.

I kneeled on the stone steps. The cold pierced through my veins, distracting me from the sweltering heat. Hotaru plopped down in next to me. I could see our mother out of the corner of my eye, it was obvious she was in a lot of discomfort and she wouldn't take her eyes off of the ema being displayed on the walls.

Who to pray to? This was a shrine to the dead. I went through a list in my head of people to whom I frequently prayed. Koro-sensei wasn't dead yet in this timeline. Grandpa Yukimura wouldn't die until shortly after I was born. My cousin Banri, whom we lost at the age of three months to crib death. I still remember the funeral, eight-year-old me in my way-too-large black dress, staring at my feet while my 'Aunt Sumire' broke down, cursing the world. If only they'd-

 _No. Bad, bad Aguri Shiota. Don't follow that thought._ My sister put her hand on my shoulder, she must have sensed that I was beginning to disassociate. Her free hand ran through my hair, the gentle pulling and rubbing brought be back to childhood, when Hotaru clung to me and followed me everywhere. She even wanted me to hold her and carry her places, nevermind we were only thirteen months apart and I didn't have the strength to do it. The fact that she was still here with me was what bound me to sanity. With a shudder, I opened my eyes and breathed.

Okay, back to the whole praying-to-our-ancestors-for-help thing. The only people I could think of who were even options at this point were Grandma and Auntie. The latter of whom I spoke to frequently, but I hadn't talked to the former in a while. So Grandma Yukimura it was.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my mother run to grab a blank ema and write something on it. Then she moved toward the wall near the pagoda at the west end of the shrine.

"Obaa-chan," I began, with my head bowed. Hotaru nodded. I switched to a whisper. "Please show us the cause of this… I don't even know what to call it. Anomaly? Yeah, let's go with that. And-" I saw Mom run back towards us, with that little hop-skip-bounce she walked with.

"Help us to complete our goal. And please please please please save little Fujiko." The rest came out in a wave of speech. I then switched to silent prayer and closed my eyes. I didn't want Mom catching onto what this was about.

 _And please recover the ones who went missing, and bless Koro-sensei, and…_

I heard a little hum next to me, and recognized that as Hotaru. When I took a look, she was done with her prayers to and rose to her feet.

"Kaede-chan, thanks for bringing us here."

"Anytime. We can go whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready." I flicked the ant off of my sock, and inspected it for bloodstains. "I think Hotaru is, too."

"Okay then! I think we should make fried rice for dinner tonight." Her smile was sweet again, but I'm sure it wasn't like that a minute ago.

I tried to glance at the pagoda as we exited, but I couldn't pick out the one Mom placed there among the sea of wooden plaques.

* * *

That night was somber. The homework was difficult and boring (who even needs pre-calculus, it's not like I'm going to become Aunt Manami), the rice was burnt, and the television went out in the middle of the news. Eh, not like it was anything new, just more crap about the moon, crap I've read in textbooks for years. After Mom ran into the bathroom because she "forgot to shower!" and spent the next hour in there muffling sobs, my sister and I sat awkwardly in the dining room, debating how to help her. Every time we knocked on the door and asked if she needed anything, the only response we got was that Mom was "sick and was going to lay down for the night".

So the next order of business was to pray to our Aunt. That was pretty standard for us, we grew up praying to her frequently. I sure hope we didn't annoy her with our regular little requests… at least this time it was a good one, not "I want a pony for Christmas."

"Aunt Aguri," I begun. Hotaru was huddled up next to me. We were whispering in the dark, under a blanket to muffle our words. We didn't want to wake Mom up with our noise, especially not with all that pain she was in.

"Aunt Aguri," I continued. "Please heal our baby sister. Please let the doctors know what to do this time. Please guide us through school, and-"

"And help us save Koro-sensei." Hotaru butt in.

"Yes, that too. And recover the people we've lost." How do I even phrase requests like this one? The words were all tired out. "Please", "help us", "bless us". I'd said them so many times. Was the repetition annoying our ancestors?

The nightlight went out.

* * *

The next few days went on, boring as any. It was now Sunday, May 10th. We should have figured out what the hell was so important about this date days ago, but things got in the way.

Breakfast was pleasant this morning, bacon, eggs, and toast, complete with coffee. Mom's hair was down, I admired how much it resembled mine (or rather, mine resembled it). Hotaru hummed.

Mom had her hand over the nape of her neck. She did that a lot, especially now that it was hot out. "I'm going to the temple today. I don't know when I'll be home. Just be sure to lock the door, okay?" Without even waiting for a response, she went off. As if she didn't want us to even think of joining her. The door shut and her footsteps echoed down the hallway.

"Time to continue to betray Mom." I stood up from my seat dramatically. "As bad as that is."

"What's the plan now?"

"We're going to follow her. This must be about whatever is so important about today."

Hotaru gobbled down the last of her bacon. "Okay. I should really stop listening to you."

"No comment."

We entered the location into the GPS on our phone, and took the longest route it suggested. Mom probably wouldn't take that one. It didn't go through a park or anything she might want to see. Just boring buildings. Mom wouldn't be interested in those.

We were correct. We didn't bump into her on the walk over. And if we eventually did, we had an excuse up our sleeves.

We found her kneeling down and praying in front of the pagoda. My sister and I hid behind a thornbush. Hotaru scratched bug bites, quietly whimpering.

But "Kayano" wasn't talking. More silent prayer. Then looked around, presumably to ascertain that no one was here.

"I wish he'd join me." I read her lips.

 _What does that mean? Who?_ If I had binoculars, this would look as wrong as it is. We always respected her privacy- that was just a given, plus she was very open with us. I was sure she didn't keep secrets from her own children. So this was yet another action that made a wave of guilt wash over me.

"What's happening over there?" A thorny branch whacked me in the stomach. I fell to the ground. Maybe all this abuse my sister and I were taking on this little excursion was a sign.

Hotaru helped me up and dusted the dirt off of me. "Look." She pointed to Mom.

Mom pulled flowers out of her bag. She scratched the nape of her neck again, and again. She let her hair down.

"It's bad today." She whispered to herself, falling to her knees. "That must be a punishment from you." Mom gripped her head following that, I guess she had a really bad migraine.

She stared at the ground for a moment. Rising, she walked that wall that had all of those ema. I guess this had to do with what she wrote a few days ago. I shifted to the next bush over, hoping to get a better view.

My sister pulled me back a significant amount.

"What are you-"

"Do you want to get caught?" She whispered. Her index finger was in front of her lips.

She was right, we were way to close. Mom stopped her (again, silent) prayer and looked in our direction. After a few seconds of nothing, she returned to her worship. We scuttled further away, our number one mission had suddenly become Not To Get Caught.

Out of the corner of my eye, a woman appeared. When I tilted my head to look at her, I could hear my heart beating.

I knew this woman. She may not have been alive, but I'd seen her so many times. My earliest memory was of falling in the river on this mountain when my parents brought me at age four. She pulled me out of the water, but by the time I stopped coughing the water out of my lungs she was gone. When I was seven and I wandered down the street alone in search of my neighbor's cat, she appeared before I went down that creepy street and held out her arms in an 'X' shape, indicating not to go down that road. And at the age of twelve, I was sick with Japanese encephalitis, she came to my bedside and told me it would be okay and I would heal soon. And then there was all the times I saw her in my dreams…

"Aguri…"

"… Yes, I know you're Aguri, sis. Are you a Pokémon now?" My sister was looking to our left, still focused on our Mom.

"Look." I tugged her sleeve and pointed.

My sister went silent. "Auntie."

Aunt Aguri walked towards us. she was moving slowly but didn't have a lot of ground to cover. She shook her finger at us, gentle but stern. The message was clear: We weren't supposed to be here.

I looked over at Hotaru, whose mouth hung open. I looked back a second later; the apparition was gone.

"… You got the message too?"

"Yeah." She reached for my hand. "Let's go home for tonight."

We couldn't get through the brush, it was too thick and the wall of a building blocked us, fences of the other sides. So we had no choice but to go into the shrine and leave through the entrance. Crap.

I tried to walk silently. Mom and Dad had the ability to do that, but they never taught it to us.

And of course, we were caught by the one person we were trying to avoid.

"Aguri, Hotaru!" She reverted to her sweet and bubbly personality the moment she saw us. "What are you doing?"

"We just went to buy soy sauce. We're running low."

She seemed to buy it, hook, line, and sinker. "Okay. Where were you going?"

"The convenience store down this street. Hotaru likes the pudding there."

"Coffee flavor." My sister finished. Exactly the excuse we were planning.

"Okay! Well, I'm done here, so why don't we go together?" She grinned.

"Sure. Let's hurry, they close early on Sundays." Time to stop being terrible to our family and focus on the whole saving-our-sister mission.

But I looked back at that wall, at the ema. _Auntie, Grandma, please don't punish me for that._

I recognized that handwriting anywhere. It was what got us out of school so many times.

 _Konomi Yukimura_

 _May 10th, 1961 - February 10th, 2014_

Grandma. She would have been 55 today. I wonder what she thought of us right now.

* * *

On the morning of what was supposed to happen with the Carmichaels, they woke up in the household of Kimura. It went as expected. Calling us crying, panicking, the whole nine yards. A part of me knew this would happen.

"Just go to school, okay? I think you know where you'll sit."

"I can figure that out. I'm more concerned about my bro."

"He'll figure it out too. Eventually. You'll catch onto Japanese, I've been told the best way to learn a language is immersion, you even sound good now-"

"…What are you talking about? You're speaking English."

"… No I'm not. You're speaking Japanese." This one didn't even shock me anymore. It was just another mystery to write down on that list we had on the fridge.

He managed to keep himself composed all day. He fit in perfectly. It seemed like Isogai and Maehara were his friends.

Takahiro pulled him aside at one point. "You're doing a good job. Keep it up."

Satoru patted his shoulder. "If Koro-sensei gave out gold stars, you'd have one right now."

Koro-sensei flew back into class. "You'll have to pick your groups for the school trip, remember that, class." He tore into his paella. "I need to eat this more often!" A blush appeared on Koro-sensei's face. Bits of rice stuck to his cheeks.

"What was it like, living in LA?" His mother walked up to him when we packed up to go home.

They knew about that? How much did they know about each of us? More importantly, did they sense that anything was up with us, be it the whole your-children-from-the-future thing or the time travel thing?

"I've always wanted visit." She went on. "Or maybe London. Or New York."

"Me too!" My own mother chimed in. "Especially Hollywood!" Of course she did.

I could tell what he was thinking. _Kind of superficial. I like here better._ But if he convinced his mom not to go there, he and his brother would have never been born. He knew that. "Very different from here." He pulled out his phone. "Here's the sunset on Malibu beach, ignore the seagulls in the background. They're rats with wings..."

* * *

"What was that plan again?" Madoka washed the dishes. Tears welled up as she got a bubble of dish soap in her eyes. "Ow."

Kintaro wiped it away with a wet cloth. "According to Nobuhiko, it involved framing the Principal for filling the school pool with rubber ducks-"

"It was the best idea I've ever had." Jeffrey sat on the rug (I only met him twice in the prior timeline, but he never seemed like the type for proper seating arrangements, or proper anything).

"Maybe you should be grateful this all happened. You don't have to worry about money or food or a house. Who knows when we'll be kicked out of this dump by the police-" Satoru started.

"I'd rather live here with all of you." Liam was leaning against the wall, staring out the window at the pidgeon that seemed oh-so fascinated with us.

"Okay, now I'm really curious about what that whole operation was." I had taken over the whole get-soap-out-of-Madoka's-eye operation. It seemed to be working well. "Anyways. You guys should really go back now. Don't want to worry your new 'parents'."

… Another question, why do those of us who woke up in an aunt or uncle's house keep their own names? Yet another thing for our list.

"I wanted to prank that asshole, and maybe Gakushuu too." Jeff searched around for his shoes among the mess on the floor.

"You might still be graced with the wonderful presence of Principal Asano anyway." I put as much sarcasm as I could muster into every word of that sentence.

"Good. We have other opportunities. Hell, maybe we'll have allies in E Class." Liam finally got up, I guess he lost his staring contest with that damn bird. "My mother always said she wasn't afraid to go back to the LA County Jail-"

"I think that was a joke." I deadpanned, wearing the same face my father always had when he didn't know what to do with people.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's true."

* * *

The groups for the trip were chosen. Unfortunately, we were not placed with our folks. That was disappointing. I wanted to get to know them even better. Myself, Hotaru, and Madoka were with Chiba, Hayami, Fuwa, and Rio. At least I would get to know them a little better. The Chiba couple were always very reserved, almost like they didn't know how to talk to us. Rio was on a totally different continent, and Fuwa… Well, whenever anyone talked to her it was like she was in her own little world.

But I do have a memory, at the very back of my mind, like a picture. The twelfth reunion of the Assassination Classroom, 'Nakamura' (she was Carmichael by then) had her arms wrapped around four-year old me. Six-month-old Liam wasn't there, he was too young to travel internationally. Three-year-old Hotaru and two-year-old Fujiko were getting pushed under the sprinkler by Aunt Fuwa. They giggled.

"You're the most precious thing, Little Aguri." Her voice stained my memory; I could still smell the perfume she wore that day. Then we were blinded by the flash of the Chibas' phone camera.

"This is so going on Line."

Ah. Good memories. I needed to keep those in mind, so this anxiety wouldn't overwhelm me.

"Midori, who'd you get placed with?" I asked her as she put her favorite makeup on me.

"… The Terasaka gang." Sweatdrop.

"It's not that bad, they're your family."

"They may be, but c'mon. Us and them?" She got out purple eyeshadow. "Now close your eyes."

"You never know what you might have in common."

* * *

Another day went by, and I was in the kitchen making dinner while my mother cleaned the floors and my sister scrubbed the bathtub. When I unlocked my phone, the group chat made my heart drop into my stomach.

 **Chitose Mizushima: Um… Hi? I have a lot of questions.**

Another one of my cousins! Within seconds the chat exploded.

 **Satoru Chiba: As do I. When did you get here?**

 **Nobuhiko Sugino: Hi Chitose-chan. What brings you here?**

My fingers worked before I could even consciously think.

 **Aguri Shiota: What the hell is happening?**

 **Tarou Mizushima: That's what I was thinking! We just fell into the basement and now here we are in the storage shed. At least that's what we think?**

 **Kaito Suzuki: Aguri nee-san? Good, someone who actually has their shit together. Can you come get us?**

We brought them to the second-genners' house. Of course, we waited around after school so that none of our classmates (it was still so weird to call them that, and not our family) noticed these new people who they would soon meet. So many things to worry about, I would surely crack one of these days…

Kaito slammed down his coffee cup (we didn't know where that coffee pot came from). Chitose flinched at the motion. Tarou looked up from his phone.

"What the fuck is this shit?"

"You're asking me?" Madoka pulled her head out of the cabinet.

"We all have the same story," I leaned against the kitchen countertop. "We don't know what exactly brought us here, Hotaru and I are hoping to get Koro-sensei's help to heal our sister, yada yada yada. Now people are disappearing." Sigh. "By the way, there's a list of mysteries about this whole mess on the fridge." The long exposition had just been given, and they were as shocked as any of us.

"So, I guess we're going to enroll in Kunugigaoka? That's what you've all done?" Kaito breathed.

"That, or maybe you'll be lucky and just wake up in someone's house and have no questions asked." Takahiro stared at his cup of coffee. Please be the strong one for us, Takahiro. I'm not sure how much more I can take.

"…I would like to do that." Chitose had that attitude her mom usually had. Bright and sunny. But that might not have been why everyone dropped everything to listen to her. Her beauty stunned everyone silent. I last remembered her as an eleven-year-old, and I'd always known she'd break a lot of hearts in the future, but I certainly didn't expect this.

"Me too." Tarou looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. It wouldn't surprise me if I looked like that too after time traveling and being plopped into the Assassination Classroom.

"…Okay. Fine. I guess we'll start studying for the entrance exam tomorrow." Kaito was bristling with anger. "Can you help me?"

"Sure, we'll help you." Satoru patted his shoulder. Kaito slapped his hand away.

"Kaito, don't be like that." I waved my finger.

"Sorry, Aguri nee-san." The brunette whimpered.

* * *

Okano disappeared the next day. I had nightmares about that. I knew it would come sooner rather than later. But I barely knew Okano. She was often too busy to come to reunions, and I remember her speaking of moving down south because work was easier to come by there.

And worse yet… Kaito would never get to know his mother in this timeline. My heart sunk for him.

"So who's gonna replace her?" Tarou took the chicken out of the oven that night.

"Don't say that!" Kaito snapped. "My mother isn't replaceable."

"Sorry, he doesn't mean it that way." Chitose smiled sadly.

"… Okay, I guess he doesn't. But I'm forced to assume it's going to be one of us." His voice went soft, and he walked into the living room to sulk.

* * *

Things somehow managed to get even weirder after that. Food started appearing in my cousins' fridge, money in their wallets, when they logged onto their Kunugigaoka portals they saw that their payments were always made.

"Okay. Not that I'm complaining, but things just keep on getting weirder and weirder the longer we stay here." Midori poured tea for Madoka.

"Maybe we'll win the lottery." Midori poured me a cup too.

"And maybe we'll figure out what the hell is going on here." I spat my tea out. I didn't expect it to be that hot.

Everyone went quiet and stared at me.

"Excuse me. I'm just a bit overwhelmed, is all." The tears spilled out of my eyes. The way your voice shakes when you're about to cry? I always hated it. Now more than ever. "I don't know what to do next. What if another one of us goes missing?" I bit down on my knuckle, and succumbed to the wave of sadness.

"There's still the question of where Hikaru is." Madoka burst out into tears. I hugged her and we cried together. The rest of them joined in the group hug, one by one, until it was a mob, like penguins in the Antarctic huddling together for warmth.

Then money appeared in our wallets, too. And our bills were paid. I was grateful that maybe this whatever-the-hell-it-was-entity it was that sent us back in time was looking out for us.

The moment that thought emerged in my head, I shuddered. We knew nothing about this, our little prayers and trips to religious buildings didn't shine a light on this at all. I went back to singing in the shower, trying to suppress that thought. Hotaru, who was down the hall making coffee, joined in.

* * *

"I'm glad to see you feel better." Kurahashi chirped, running her fingers through my hair. "Did you go to the doctor?"

"Nope. I just slept it off." I laughed. My sister and I had spent yesterday forging medical records for ourselves. We didn't want to risk an actual doctor seeing them, not unless we had to. But they were the best we could manage, as a couple of young teenagers who couldn't even make tempura without the oil splashing and burning us.

 _Twins, Aguri and Hotaru Fujihara, born on July 4th (halfway between our real birthdays), 2000, at 6:16 pm, in Chiyoda, Tokyo. No family history of anything. No siblings. Both parents died in a car accident when the girls were thirteen. The girls moved to Kunugigaoka with the money they inherited._

That would have to do. So many lies. I was seriously considering writing them all down and keeping them in a notebook.

* * *

By now, everyone was just counting down the days until the field trip. Assassination attempts day in and day out. It was rapidly becoming a part of our lives. But myself, Hotaru, and our cousins, we never made an attempt. I just couldn't, not when I'd spent my whole childhood hearing so much about this octopus, not when he'd been so wonderful to us and taught us so much in such a short amount of time.

That thought came to my head once again. Save Koro-sensei? Well, those of us from the future knew that it could be done, my lovely aunt had taken care of that (no surprise that she went on to be a Nobel Laureate). I wanted to mention it to anyone, but every time I tried anxiety clamped my mouth shut.

"What's wrong, Fujihara-san?" My beloved teacher asked, noticing my frown. He even took note of that while dodging Uncle Karma's bullets. He slithered his tentacle over at Mach speed and snatched it away. "Bad Karma, bad! No distractions during class!" Karma's eyebrows were plucked and perfectly shaped.

I put on another smile, yet another time I lied to a loved one. "I'm very concerned about the homework I just turned in, is all."

"Well, how about you stay after school and we'll address it?"

"Okay." This smile was real, though. I would have some one-on-one time with Koro-sensei, maybe learn a bit more about him. It's not like he favored me, but he seemed to know that there was something special about me. Or maybe it was just my name and Hotaru and myself's resemblance to Mom and Dad.

After school. Hotaru and "Kayano" were waiting outside the building, I was sure Hotaru was listing in on the conversation. I didn't know what Mom was doing.

"So, Fujihara-san, what are you worried about, with the homework?" His tentacle held up the math homework. "I created it tailored to your strengths and weaknesses."

Blush. I remember hearing about that from the family. "Could you just walk me through the steps to do the first equation?" I did need help, after all.

"No problem." He walked over slowly, focusing on me a little more than usual. "See, this is where you begin…"

Like my father, I was good at reading people. And octopi, I guess. Because I knew what was on his mind right now.

 _Aguri. I won't let anything happen to you ever again._

* * *

 **… I don't know if I like how this chapter turned out. Please let me know what you think of it. I've been stressed with school and other things, and I held off publishing it because of many reasons. Thanks for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter.**


	9. Chapter 9

**This chapter wound up being more centric to the E Class students who aren't the RGB trio. I don't know what I think about that. Please forgive my urge to write Gakurio that has been seeping through the cracks…**

 **Kayano has been added to the character tags.**

 **Thanks for all reviews. Sorry to the guest whose review didn't get posted immediately, I have moderation on.**

 **I'm making minor changes to the last few chapters to correct the inconsistencies. You do not have to reread them, the changes are just that Kimura is very much still disappeared (Takahiro talked to Isogai in that chapter) and I'm also taking the liberty of rearranging the desks and class roster to fit in alphabetical order, while putting the "transfer students" (Aguri, Hotaru, the Chiba siblings) at the end. This is something I just realized, and it's a giant pain to think about (I'll probably make a new seating chart and post it on my tumblr or something when I get my shit together), but it wouldn't make sense otherwise. To my knowledge, Japanese classrooms are almost always arranged alphabetically. Mine's weren't, but that was a) college and b) a school for foreigners anyway. I've also went back and polished some of the spelling/grammar, it was abysmal at times…**

 **AN: 'Aguri' means last daughter and is a name that parents give their daughter if they wanted a boy instead, you know this drill if you've read most of my other stories, but here it is if you haven't.**

 **Warning: This chapter has a few mentions of certain body functions. You have been warned.  
**

* * *

"Look, it's a freaking downpour out there, and when we gained consciousness we heard a very familiar voice guiding us here. Couldn't put my finger on who exactly it was, but I'm just glad something came out of all of the 'turn left, turn right' crap we had to deal with."

And that was how Minami Minnaoka and Kaguya Yoshida showed up at my cousins' doorstep, soaking wet and covered in mud.

"You too?" I asked Minami as she joined me in the living room, after her forty-minute long shower.

"Yep. Us, and you too, I guess." She dried her wiry black hair in a towel. I knew who she was anywhere, even aged up, because her face looked so unique and her pink eyes were bright and piercing. "I don't even know what to think besides what the hell."

"Are ALL of our family going to be here?" Hotaru voiced my concerns. We are sisters, after all, so of course we'd think alike. Mom said that about Aunt Aguri, that because they were sisters they both fell for assassins.

"It'd be no shocker." Kaguya appeared, descending the stairs, she had been using the shower a floor up.

"I'm gonna anticipate it, and I'm not too sure who's gonna disappear next." The rain poured down outside. It was soothing to me.

"Disappear?" Kaguya dried her hair.

"Yep, that's been happening too." I sat down on the floor facing them, they both had that thousand-yard stare.

"Hikaru's still missing." Madoka, who at some point had apparently sat down next to me, leaned against my shoulder and I patted her back gently.

"I guess you'll have to enroll, or materialize in someone's house or whatever, after the trip." I grabbed my temples.

"Huh?" These poor girls. This would all be normal to them in a few weeks.

"That's what Tarou and I are waiting for." Chitose noticed that both girls looked like they were going to be sick. "I'll look for some Dramamine. We bought it, right?"

"I think." Midori's voice came from the kitchen. "Anyway. You guys can sleep in the basement. Don't worry, it's nice down there." As she said that, the Mizushimas froze with deer-in-the-headlights looks on their faces. Nobuhiko dropped the binder he was carrying. Kintaro jumped to his brother's side and patted his back as he continued to shake.

That's right… There _is_ a basement here. And an attic. Shudder. I don't know what's in either, but I did know that I certainly didn't want to go to them.

"I think I goes without saying that we all need to act normal at school." Kinoko seemed oblivious to the atmosphere. She pointed to the refrigerator, where the house rules were enumerated and written on a sheet of paper held in place with a magnet. 'Act normal' was the first, right above 'try to get to know everyone' and 'we are all on first name basis here'. Right next to it was our little mystery list.

"I don't think Minami is capable of acting normal at school." Kaito huffed. He was in the room this entire time but didn't speak up?

"Screw you, Kaito. Anyway, is that a copy of the book my mother wrote?" Minami pointed to the coffee table. It indeed was, it was in my backpack when I time traveled.

"Isn't that a waste of paper?"

"Isn't your birth certificate a waste of paper?" Kaguya smiled sadistically.

"Everybody SHUT UP!" I snapped, earning the attention of everyone in the room. It was pure silence save for the whimpered apology from Kaito.

Midori poked her head out from the kitchen and giggled. "Kaguya, you are indeed The Queen."

* * *

The midterm came and went. I think I did okay on it? I was in the ninth grade back at home, but Kunugigaoka was quite a bit harder than Shinjuku Hills Junior High for Gifted Students. Hotaru kept talking about wanting to go there, if we ever return to our own timeline. Who knows if that will ever happen.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Gakushuu Asano that day. Or at least, he called it a pleasure. I wouldn't agree, since he also glared at me as if I were an animal sniffing at his shoe. I threw back a _go-to-hell_ glance, which seemed to shock him. I guess he wasn't used to having people defy him.

"We did meet Mr Asano a few times." Liam told us one day after school. We were in the second-genners' home; Midori, Hotaru, and myself were just about to go shopping for shoes with Minami and Kaguya, whose shoes were ruined by the mud.

"You mean the one in A Class." I searched around for my shoes, hoping Jeffery didn't put glue in them or something.

"Yes, the son." Liam said.

I remember Liam saying he thought Asano had a thing for my aunt, based on the few interactions they had with him. The way he told the story was…

Well, I could picture it in my head. Sitting at a coffee shop on their family vacation to San Francisco, he and his brother were twelve and ten. Gakushuu stared out of the window, scowling and sipping coffee. The cars passed by. It was clear by the way he looked he was a regular here. Maybe he liked the way the windows let in the sunlight, maybe he just liked paying 1200 yen for coffee. Who knows. But Mrs Carmichael (as I knew her back then) got out of her seat and stole his hat. That was a running thing with them, every time they met she would do that, and Gakushuu would roll his eyes.

"Here alone, with two kids?" He snarled. "I'd think a catch like you would have a husband."

"He's in the bathroom," She laughed. "In case you were thinking of stealing me."

"Shut up." He tried to hide the red on his face.

Gakushuu's wife had just left and wanted to take their two children. She wasn't too thrilled with his attitude, or his obsession with winning, or the way he put his shoes on in the morning. She had served him with divorce papers eight days ago at dinner. Gakushuu saw it coming, but he was too 'busy' to do anything about it (and didn't want to admit that he didn't care). Well, divorcing her now cost him quite a bit, but it's not like he had a say in that matter. The only thing he really cared about in that marriage was the children.

But he missed Rio Nakamura in a weird way, in junior high he always wanted to get to know her better. One would think they'd had that opportunity when they both moved to California, but too bad for Gakushuu that someone snatched her up already.

… Er, that's how that scene played out in my head, anyways. I should write a book, or so Midori told me the other day when I explained the plot Jojo's Bizarre Adventures part 10 to her. I might actually consider it, telling stories was one of the few things I seem to be good at doing.

"He seemed a bit stuck up, but he was nice to us, at least. Kept blushing when he talked to Mom." Liam went on, confirming my suspicions.

"Not gonna lie, I'm scared of the father." Jeffery spoke up, I didn't even notice that he was there. My shoes were hidden underneath the shoe rack and thankfully not filled with any sort of annoying thing.

"Aren't we all?" Except I just stepped on a whoopie cushion. "…Thanks, Jeff."

* * *

"Hey." My dad approached my sister after the bell rung, signaling that the school day was over. "We're all meeting up later today to go shopping for clothes for the trip."

"YOU'RE going clothes shopping?" I raised my eyebrow.

"I'm just there to hold Kayano's bags, honestly." Sweatdrop. "Do you want to go, Hotaru, Aguri? Uh, I mean, Fujihara-san."

"Sure!" My sister beamed. I nodded. Dad actually approached us? Great!

"Hah! Clothes shopping? Why do you need to do that?" I guess Terasaka was in a bad mood, and probably didn't like us anyway (hopefully he'd warm up? I mean, we was our uncle, after all). "You probably have a new outfit for each day."

I figured the best policy was to ignore him and keep talking to my immediate family.

"So Aguri, huh?" Terasaka drilled on, probably thinking he hit a sore spot but I was actually very proud of my name. "That's a strange name. Kind of cruel, your parents must have been really disappointed to get _two_ daughters-"

He was cut off by Kataoka squirting him with the water bottle that we used to water the plants in the windowsill (I didn't remember them, they must be a new addition in this timeline). "Bad Terasaka, bad!"

It looked like my father took pause. His pigtails trembled.

Mom bristled with anger at her desk. "Terasaka," she growled, "Back off. What's going on with her and her family is none of your business. Go watch Azumanga Daioh or commit robbery or whatever it is you delinquents do."

Terasaka, unable to handle the double whammy of being embarrassed by both the class rep and a girl half his size, whimpered and walked off. "I'll have you know I'm much more of a K-On guy," was the last we heard from him that day.

It seemed like another switch flipped as soon as he left the room. Dad walked up to Mom, who seemed like her bright bubbly self again and was all smiles.

"Why don't we all go to karaoke today, as well? I'll pay."

* * *

Mom never asked us about where the money was coming from. I knew she wouldn't. Better she doesn't know about whatever magical powers make money appear in our wallets.

On that front, things were going great. Mom as a teen was adorable, sweet, and I felt like she was opening up a part of her life to me, one I had never experienced before. Terasaka described her as "a can of sunshine and rainbows shoved up your ass". She laughed when she heard that, and dug into her pudding.

One night she emerged from the bathroom after a bubble bath (the whole apartment smelled like strawberries), singing something I didn't recognize. I noticed that her hair was greener than usual. Mom fumbled around looking for her house shoes, while my sister struggled with trigonometry homework and I was at the door, ascertaining that it was locked and after I brought the mail inside.

"I see you did something new with your hair." I noticed that we needed a shoe rack, like yesterday.

"I dyed it again." She smiled and said in that singsong voice she had. Come to think of it… She must have died it not only to fool everyone about her real identity, but also to separate herself from the tragedies of her past.

"It's great." Big smiles! Don't let her know that you know anything, Aguri Shiota!

She had been letting it down more often now, especially at home. We had seen it like that hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million times, but it seemed different now, since it was only an at home thing. Did it mean she trusted us? _Does she know?_

"You look cute, Kaede." I said one night at dinner, when she wore an unusually sullen face and seemed to be distracted. This was a surprise, especially recently.

"Thanks, Aguri." Darn it, I was hoping for a -chan along with that. She got up and walked towards her bedroom. "I'm gonna go lay down for the night."

"Do you want us to bring you anything?" Hotaru offered. Her chopsticks made a _clang_ noise when they hit the plate.

There was another awkward silence, another unnatural interaction between our mother and I. That makes two since we met teenage her. The background noise was the television, playing _Erased_. Huh, I thought that wasn't an anime at this point.

"No Hotaru." No -chan for her either? "I just need some time to do something." She walked off, slowly, and her back was a sight that seemed wrong to us right then.

I guess it was that time of the month or something. I put some tampons outside of her door, but they were untouched in the morning.

* * *

The next item on my agenda was to get closer to the people in our group for the trip, or at least try. How hard could that be? _Right?_

"You know, you look a bit like Nagisa." Nakamura ruffled Hotaru's hair. "You his cousin or something?"

"Pretty sure I'm not-" Hotaru choked out, finding it hard to breathe as Nakamura smothered her with a hug.

"So, any concerns about Kyoto?" I HAD to change the subject. I heard about her being smart; she may put the pieces together, and she may even be open to the possibility of time travel. "Maybe we won't be able to complete our homework on time, and we'll have to do it on the trip."

"I dunno and I don't care." She shrugged and gave Hotaru a poke on the cheek. "I'm stupid, if you didn't notice." She began to walk towards the door, apparently having something planned after school. Oh, that's right: I remembered she and Karma met up every Wednesday to concoct plans to 'prank' the Main Campus students. "Excuse me. I'm gonna go celebrate the fact that it's Tuesday."

 _I see where your son gets his attitude from_. I filed this away in my thoughts to tell Jeffery later. "Have fun."

"But seriously, you look like Nagisa and Kayano's love children." She looked back from her journey to flirt with being expelled. "How cute. Anything you want me to do to any of those Virtuosos?"

Here's to hoping she means that as a joke. Oh grandma, grandpa, Aunt Aguri, please don't let anyone catch on…

* * *

Nakamura was easy enough to get along with, if you didn't mind the teasing. It was just a game of trying to keep her in the dark. Trying to get close to the Chiba couple (though she was still Hayami at this point), however, was tough. Almost impossible.

I approached them the day before our departure to Kyoto. They were packing up, and seemed stuck in their own little world. Or at least, that's what they wanted everyone to think. I caught them taking brief glances at their children. They knew something was up with them too. Just like Mom and Dad paid extra attention to me and Hotaru and Okuda and Karma paid mind to Madoka.

"So. Uh, where do you want to go on the trip?" I sipped the lemon soda I bought at a vending machine earlier today. Mom recommended it, but I wasn't sure if I was really a fan. I handed it to Hotaru, who chugged it down.

Hayami's gaze burned a metaphorical hole into me. "Don't know."

"Maybe Kinkaku-ji." Chiba's school bag looked heavy. What could he possibly have in there; does he use it as a weapon like my Grandma does?

"Have you been to Kyoto before?" Hotaru chirped.

"Yep. It's better than here." Hayami dusted the grains of rice off her desk. She never struck me as a messy eater.

"Yeah." Chiba looked down. I had never seen his eyes. Midori told me he had heterochromia, but she may have just been messing with me. It was hard to tell sometimes.

"My sister and I only went to Kyoto once. I want to go to Kiyomizu-dera and-" I started. It was another lie, there was nothing in particular my little sister or I wanted to see, and we had been to Kyoto dozens of times. Mom had all that extra money lying around, so fancy vacations every summer break were a thing. I've already been to Paris four times, Disney World more times than I can count, London, New York...

It was then that I noticed… there was a lot of pain in Hayami's eyes. I never saw that look on her. But I didn't know her well, and adults tend to be good at hiding their pain. I guess that would go double for adults educated in this classroom. It made me shut up for a second.

"…Okay. I guess we can do that too." She exhaled. I didn't even know that she was holding her breath. "Chiba-kun, let's go practice shooting."

He messed with his hair, probably trying to get it to cover his eyes a bit more. "Yeah. Thanks, Fujihara-san." He walked off with her. They looked back.

Wasn't Hayami supposed to be stoic? As in, not showing any emotion _at all_? Was this just her way of putting walls up? Did she not want us in this group? Or did something happen to them? And Chiba… I'd have to ask Midori and Satoru about how to get to him.

But after thinking about it that night, I don't think they dislike me. Far from it. But I did think they don't know how to respond to me, or my sister. I should ask better questions…

* * *

And then there was Fuwa… Well, she was an oddball, even in 3-E. I remember her in the other timeline. I remember she didn't have a child until I was almost twelve. I heard whispers about her and her husband being unable to have one, and finally saving up the money for IVF. I remember her reaction when her son, my cousin Kaworu was finally born. I remember her recommending me different manga, and insisting I stick with One Piece through to chapter 1783, because "that's the best part"! I was still 840 chapters away from that.

I was honestly a bit scared to talk to her this time. Her enthusiasm was a bit much when I had so many things on my mind. It wasn't usually, not when my sister and I knew her as children. But I was thrown off in this timeline. I was just too overwhelmed with dealing with everyone and everything, then I have to interact with Fuwa… no way this won't exhaust me. I knew it was wrong to say that about my family. So I tried to talk to her electronically first, I thought I'd need to take it gradually. So I sent her a message on Line that same day once I got home.

 **Hey Fuwa-san! I didn't get a chance to talk to you after class. Is there anything you want to do or see during the trip?**

I was actually avoiding her after class. Yet another lie. Maybe not to my parents, but to another beloved member of my family. But I got a response immediately.

 **I've actually never been to Kyoto, so I'm excited! I want to go to Gion and Arashiyama and do you know anything about Nishiki Market? The pictures of Fushimi Inari-Taisha look great. I remember some manga that took place there. I'd have to be censored if I mentioned it by name, but it's that one with the detective.**

I locked the phone and threw it on my bed. Tears formed in my eyes and I begged my aunt to forgive me. I couldn't summon the energy to think about that, yet alone respond to it.

* * *

My name, and that incident with Terasaka emerged in my head again, this time while I tried to get to bed at midnight (it wasn't happening, by the look of it). Sure, with the meaning of my name, and the implications it carried, it's a bit of a wonder that any parent called their daughter Aguri. But mine's did.

 _A-gu-ri_. Three hiragana. Whispered across my mother's breast as she fed me when I was just born. From Hotaru's two-year-old mouth, it was the third word she'd learned to speak, and it came out in one breath as she poked my nose. My crush said it in a low voice when he asked me to be his partner for the presentation in our English Class, it was the first time he referred to me by my first name and I felt my soul light up like a Christmas tree. My Uncle Karma squealed it while picking four-year-old me up to tickle me. That was the time he tickled me so hard I peed and he tried to hide that from my Dad when he came into the room. And then my Dad yelped it when he noticed that and tore me from my Uncle, shooting him one of those disappointed looks I saw every once in a while.

It was the only thing that my cousins called me. Aguri, sometimes Aguri nee-san and sometimes even Aguri-chan. To the folks I was Little Aguri or Baby Aguri. My name made everyone else cringe, there was always a look of pity on faces when they first heard it. My sisters' names never invoked that kind of reaction in people. My father's name just convinced everyone that he was a girl, something he was used to. My mom went by many names, but for most of my life it was Akari, meaning bright. Kaede was taken from a role she briefly played and applied to a new one that gradually became a part of her, and Haruna was just what the adoring public knew her as.

I thought about it until the sun came up, and I still thought about it, and even then I couldn't get it out of my mind.

* * *

It was the morning of the trip. I got out of bed easily, in spite of the 90 minutes of sleep I got.

Looking through the closet, something caught my eye. The same white dress I had on then I time traveled. It was impeccably clean, after all I did wash it three times. I couldn't decide whether it taunted me or gave me peace. Maybe a little of both? I wanted to wear it again, but it was intended for the next reunion and that wouldn't be for a while.

As we did on some days, I walked to my cousins' house. We would all walk to school together today. We told Mom we were arriving early because we had something important to say to Koro-sensei (yet another lie), she nodded and smiled as she brushed her teeth. She also looked like she was in a bit of pain too, but she said it was that time (so I guess my suspicions were correct) and that she'd bring painkillers for it. As Hotaru and I continued the pleasant walk to the abandoned-looking house, I tried to distract myself with idle small talk, while internally reprimanding myself for all the lying recently.

Most of them who were attending the trip were already at the door. I helped Madoka with her tie, she had apparently choked herself when she did it on her own. Midori had insisted on brushing Satoru's hair, he now looked like he came out of a shampoo commercial.

"Why can't I go one the trip?" Kinoko pouted.

"Because you aren't in third year." Takahiro shook his finger at her. "But you get to go to Mount Fuji, that's pretty cool."

"Been there, done that." She stretched out on the couch. "Anyway, I gotta get up. Maybe I'll have to opportunity to spy on people at Mount Fuji."

The clock struck 7:00 am. "Everyone ready to go?" I yelled. When I got nothing but nods, I continued. "Okay! Marching forward-"

"Wait up for me! I'm looking for my socks."

That voice. My jaw would have hit the floor, were that physically possible. And then he entered the room, in all his glory.

"Hikaru!" Madoka shot up to run and hug her beloved brother.

"What! What happened to you?" Various cousins exploded at him. He tilted his head (was that confusion?), as if this were the weird part.

"Where were you?" Takahiro yelled, not out of anger (probably?) but out of shock.

"Was I gone? What did I miss?"

* * *

 _February 1st, 2045._

The winter weather was bitterly cold, but Satsuki and Sayaka Kanou didn't mind that. They were bundled up in thick sweaters, caps, and scarves (an extra thick wool scarf for Sayaka, she had owned it since childhood).

They were walking to meet their mother at work. Her shift got out in thirty minutes, and they wanted to surprise her. After all, she had just been promoted to head nurse at the retirement home. So naturally, The Best Mom In The World deserved something special.

"You have the flowers, right?" Satsuki's breath was a cloud of fog that obscured her vision for a few seconds. The street became a blur until she rubbed the fog off of her glasses.

"In my school bag." She assured her older sister. Yes, flowers would die quickly in this weather, but it's not like they could afford anything better or knew how to cook. So flowers it was.

"So how was your test today?" Satsuki asked her younger sister.

"It was easy. On the Russian revolution." Huh? Satsuki's school hadn't covered that yet, and she was two years older!

Sigh. Satsuki had begged, pleaded, pushed for her parents to send her to Kunugigaoka- she wanted to see what this school was all about. She wanted to see 3-E. She wanted to contact the spirit of Koro-sensei, the teacher she had heard so much about. That was all she talked about when the topic of middle school came up. But her folks refused, reminded her that 3-E wasn't a thing anymore, and told her that they could take her to visit Koro-sensei whenever she wanted.

They were good parents, so they must have had their reasons. So Satsuki trusted their judgement. But that didn't stop her from being kind of disappointed with the school that she did end up going to. The school that her sister went to wasn't the best either, but Satsuki probably would have preferred a nice small all-girls school to the massive numbers of people she had to deal with on a daily basis.

"Mom's gonna love our surprise." Sayaka caught snowflakes on her tongue. Really? Snow already? Last week's snow hadn't even melted yet!

"For sure."

Mom was said to be a great beauty in junior high, and the pictures they saw confirmed that, if stories of their baseball player uncle's infatuation didn't (stories which probably would have been, frankly, embarrassing for him if he heard anyone repeat them). And she was still a great beauty today, even if the stress of her job had begun to make her hair gray and she lost her energy.

Sayaka was busy scrolling through Line, waiting on that message back from Madoka Akabane. Satsuki also saw her message Aguri Shiota, then quickly looked away and felt bad. Sayaka should have some privacy. But what did she even want to talk to Aguri about anyway? This upcoming summer (it seemed so far away), Aguri would be twenty-one, Satsuki sixteen, and Sayaka fourteen. Hmm, Aguri's sisters all had summer birthdays too. It was all the more to celebrate, but seriously what was with that…

Anyway, Aguri was old enough to be giving them advice on their little teen issues, like what to say to the popular kids and how to survive Calculus AB. So she was the one to whom all the cousins flocked when they needed guidance. Satsuki wished she could be admired like that in a few years. Well, at least Sayaka thought Satsuki was cool. She had that going for her.

The walk to the retirement home was quiet. Satsuki treasured this aspect of her relationship with her sister, that they could enjoy each other's presence in silence. Midori Chiba never shut her trap, and it was obvious how much that annoyed her poor brother, or so Satsuki perceived it. And the Konoda brothers' enthusiasm was a bit much sometimes, but their mother, Satsuki's aunt Sumire, was the most accepting person ever and just chuckled away at their eccentricities. Satsuki wished she had that kind of patience.

But the retirement home… Satsuki didn't like thinking about it, not at all. Soon her parents would be that old. Before then, Satsuki would be Aguri's age, and before that the summer she'd been anticipating so much would be gone. Before that, Valentine's day would pass and she'd give her crush chocolates (would he accept her affection?) and she'd move on to second year and-

"Hey look Satsuki nee-san." Sayaka pointed to the power line. Atop it sat a giant black bird.

 _Caw._ Several others joined it. They all stared blankly at the sisters.

Huh? What was this? Why were there _crows_ here? Satsuki didn't think she'd ever seen crows in the winter before, at least not here in Yokohama.

It seemed like the crow quartet was a choir. Their caws harmonized, drilling into the teens' brains.

 _Caw caw caw caw!_

What followed was the most unnerving of Satsuki's realizations: The street was suddenly empty, even if only a few seconds ago it was crowded with people.

One landed on Sayaka's head and stared Satsuki in the eye. She stared back to assert dominance ( _Over a bird?_ ), but that backfired when the bird dove straight at her.

And his eyes were _red_!?

And when Satsuki Kanou woke up and figured out what had happened, she was quite pleased to learn that time had regressed.

* * *

 **I don't know if anyone else noticed, but the way I've written Aguri she has some behaviors and thoughts associated with Autism and OCD. I didn't mean for it to come out that way, but I have both and it just sort of happened that Aguri can't look people in the eye or is always ascertaining that the door is locked, or can't tell if someone is messing with her. If you have an opinion on any of that, please tell me in a review/PM.**

 **The sort-of drabble about Aguri's name towards the end there was inspired by the prologue of** ** _The Red Tent_** **.**

 **Also I don't know what Dramamine is called in Japan, or if they even have it. They don't have a lot of over-the-counter (and especially not prescription) meds in Japan.**

 ***Inhales* Please review and point out any more inconsistencies.**


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